It Takes Two
by wysha.thorne
Summary: Amanda is joined during her trip by Paul Carter, who is the younger half-brother of a certain heartless bastard. Along the way, they encounter a literal nightmare, and the only mpreg mentioned is the blatantly obvious. This is also a more futuristic version, although it still somewhat stays true to the original game. Oh, and it's a literal nightmare too.
1. Chapter 1

I stand near the counter, watching Amanda as she gets to work. The repair job is a rover that looks like it's been left on Mars for about a hundred years, and neither of us notice that we have company.

'RIPLEY!' A man calls out, taking us by surprise.

I put my cup down, and walk over to the man, codenamed C. Samuels. Amanda looks up.

'I'm Samuels! I work for the company.' Samuels says as he shoots a look at Amanda. 'It's about your mother!'

This is what catches Amanda's attention, as her mother is – well, was – Ellen Ripley. Searches have failed to locate her, although the news that the Nostromo flight recorder has been found by way of a ship called the Anesidora seems to get her hopes up.

Unfortunately, the next bit lowers mine.

'Where?' Amanda asks as she becomes hopeful.

'Zeta Reticula.' Samuels replies as we all start walking.

Amanda immediately asks for information, to which Samuels makes it known that he doesn't know. I can tell that the next bit of news is going to be bad, and when he announces that it's been taken to Sevastopol, my hands magically clench into a fist.

'Is everything okay, sir?' Samuels asks me as he notices my fists.

'Everything's fine.' I silently lie.

I am part of the Waits family. Well, technically, I'm not, although I am the younger half-brother of the dipshit Marshall that is supposed to be in charge of protecting the place. As a former Marshall myself on Pandora (supply depot in Tau Cetian space), I knew how to take care of people, although it seemed that the person who shared a mother with me had different ideas in that department.

'Well transit's arranged.' Samuels announces, catching us by surprise. 'There's a courier ship – The Torrens – leaving in two days. We're going to travel out.'

'We?' Amanda asks, visibly confused.

'Me, and another exec… and both of you, if you're both willing.' Samuels confirms as I start to smirk.

This is my chance to shine, to ask my fucker of a half-brother why he has started acting strange. There are a few possible scenarios running through my head, with the main one being the recent rise in xenomorph-related incidents.

'Then we'll both go.' I vow as I shoot a look at Amanda. 'That way, we'll both get what we want.'

'And what if we fail?' Amanda asks me out of worry.

I look at Samuels, who promptly leaves. Amanda pours herself a cup of coffee, and I sit back down.

'We won't know unless we try.' I reply as I take another sip from my own cup.

'And what's your reason for going?' Amanda inquires as she holds her cup.

'My brother, as Sevastopol is being decommissioned, and thanks to that and a few other things, he's been… well… I'll just say that he's behaving oddly.' I reply with a sigh. 'It's not a safe place, so I would advise that upon our arrival, we stick together.'

Before Amanda opens her mouth, I put my cup down again, and pick up a flamethrower.

'You ever used one of these?' I ask Amanda as she looks at me like I've got three heads.

'No.' Amanda confirms as she finally regains composure.

'Well a wise man once told me to keep one on me at all fucking times.' I confirm with a smirk. 'Keeps unwanted fuckers at bay, sends out a clear message. You have a shoelace untied.'

Amanda looks at me in confusion, and using my free hand, I point to her right shoe. There is a minimum of twenty-five years between us, but when you're in space with the possibility of never making it back to Earth with an intact ribcage, such things do not matter, as your main goal is to be one of the lucky few, and two pairs of hands is always better than one when it comes to fighting the very thing that will give you a fucked ribcage and take your DNA as payment.

After about an hour of talking, we decide to go through with the mission. I contact Samuels, letting him know the answer, and within about half an hour, we are given our keycards and ID tags. I am wearing all blue aswell as a baseball cap, and my flamethrower – which will give the receiver a rather nasty burn if used – is as ready as ever. I also carry a bag on me, containing a revolver, a shotgun, a stun baton, and a bolt gun, although I do know that Amanda is going to need a few of her own in the event that we end up meeting some enemies.

Little do we know, that's about to happen.

I finish my cup of coffee, and wait for Amanda to finish hers. It's not the best cup of coffee, but given the circumstances that are about to be forced upon us, it has to do. My sandwich isn't that much better, and when we make our way to the docking station, we do so nervously.

'First mission?' Amanda asks me as she notices that I'm somewhat nervous.

'Not at all.' I reply nervously.

I am a little nervous, although not for the reason that's about to happen, as Amanda's replacement comes in. His name is Derek, and he is about thirty-ish, with dirty blonde hair and green eyes, and an attitude that leaves a fair bit to be desired. Amanda and I walk past him, trying to keep any and all forms of conversation to the bare minimum, and we eventually succeed.

'I see you have made it.' Samuels says as he walks up to us.

'We did.' I reply as I adjust my flamethrower and bag. 'You got any more info?'

'It seems that Sevastopol is having a few problems.' Samuels confirms with a sigh. 'However, that shouldn't be much of an issue. I see you have a few weapons on you. That's not really appropriate.'

'It is given what could happen, as we don't want to get there only to find out that the place has been wrecked by one of those bastards.'

Samuels nods, and we head on our way. Amanda is pretty hopeful, although thanks to how her life has been, I can tell that she's somewhat nervous, as she's never seen a xenomorph before, although her life has been forever changed because some guy called Kane couldn't keep his face away from one of the eggs on that planet. He then gets pregnant with one of "those" things, and about twenty-four hours later during dinner, he gives a very violent birth to it, and it rips the fuck out of all but one of the crew.

Ellen Ripley.

And Jones the cat, but as someone who isn't a huge fan of cats (but doesn't hate them), I am leaving that part of the story out. The same goes for Amanda, as even though we have only known each other for a short time, I have heard all of the stories. Nobody can blame her, and if I were in that situation, I would've done the same thing. We then make our way over to the shuttle, which is equipped with stasis pods, and upon climbing into them, it's eyes closed.

Waking up on the Torrens, I start to feel a little woozy. Amanda fares a little better, and as luck would have it, I am still dressed.

'You awake, Paul?' Amanda asks me as she sits up.

'Only just.' I admit as my head spins. 'God, I don't miss being in stasis. What about you?'

'I'm okay with it.' Amanda smiles as she stands up.

Amanda is somewhat naked (thanks to Weyland-Yutani's somewhat sexist rules), and when she walks over to the terminal, she logs herself in. I follow suit, and we both walk into the closet area to get dressed.

'You never seen a naked woman before?' Amanda asks me out of curiosity.

'It's just… uhm… this is the least appropriate time for me to be aroused.' I admit as I try to not think specific thoughts.

At that moment, my toe makes contact with an open drawer. I let out a few curse words, before regaining my composure. Amanda gets herself ready, giving me the signal, and I follow suit. My clothes are still crease-free, and I happily put them on. My head is still fuzzy from being in a dreamless hypersleep, and I also feel like my body needs to eat something. Amanda sees this, and we make our way through to the social area.

'Good morning, Taylor.' Amanda says as she spots the woman in front of her.

The woman is Nina Taylor. She's the WY exec that is coming with us, and she's in a foul-as-fuck mood. However, she does have a point with the doubting that it's morning part, as in space, time can work a little differently.

'Hope your mood gets better.' I whisper as I walk over to a wall-mounted cupboard.

'I don't feel too good.' Taylor admits as she just sits there looking pathetic-as-fuck.

'Neither do I, but seriously, you need to stop acting like you're the only one with a hypersleep-related hangover.' I sigh as I fish out a few bars.

Amanda walks over, and lets me know that we need to go and talk to Samuels. I am relieved, as I don't want to be standing there spending god-knows-how-long talking to a moody bitch who sounds like she just got given the wrong color bracelet. I unwrap one of the bars, and start eating as we make our way down some small corridors. The bars are only slightly better than the sandwich, although what I've picked up isn't enough, so I make a mental note to nab a few more when I get the chance.

'Ahhh! Guys, have you seen Taylor? Hypersleep may have been punishing for her.' Samuels asks as we walk through the door.

'We talked.' I confirm on Amanda's behalf. 'She seems a little nervous.'

'I hadn't noticed.' Samuels admits as he looks my way.

'You been up a while?' I ask out of curiosity.

'I don't require as much hypersleep.' Samuels admits as he continues to look at me. 'What about you? You look like you have a hangover.'

'Hypersleep and me don't go well together.' I admit as I take another bite out of my bar.

At that moment, a female voice calls for us to enter the bridge. My flamethrower is safely turned off inside my bag, located on my back which is angry at me for being in hypersleep for as long as this trip has required. This old ship is an M-Class, and like Samuels and Amanda have just said, it's similar to the Nostromo. I can't help but agree, as all M-Class ships look almost identical. It's for practical reasons, and I cannot help but smile as I take everything in. I also manage to grab as many bars – and equally as many drinks containers – as possible, and we walk through to the bridge.

'See that you've managed to make it.' Verlaine says to us as she looks at us.

'The Torrens is a very good ship. It's similar in design to the Nostromo.' Samuels mentions as he stands in his spot.

I jump up onto the small wall, and maneuver myself so that I am comfortable. I hold onto the wall with my right hand, making sure that I don't fall onto the floor.

'She was a wreck when I first bought her.' Verlaine replies with a smile. 'Took a few years, some contracts. Pays for herself now.'

'Are we approaching Sevastopol?' Taylor asks, hopeful.

'I see that your contact is Marshal Waits.' Verlaine says as she shoots a look at Taylor. 'I'll arrange boarding with him. How are we doing, Connor?'

Connor's reply includes tech-speak about approach vectors being locked. I am used to it, although I cannot seem to remember the words. I then notice what appears to be a Dead Space comic next to the briefing documents, and I immediately smile.

'Someone here likes Dead Space.' I smile as I look around.

'That would be me.' Verlaine replies happily. 'Been collecting them since I was a child. Have the games too, although they're about a hundred years old now. Took a bit of reconfiguring, although they are now playable on our systems.'

'Has everybody collected their briefing documents?' Samuels asks out of the blue, catching us by surprise.

I nod in a "no" fashion, and upon jumping off of the wall, I walk over to the table containing the briefing documents, and Amanda and I both pick up our folders. They have our names on the front, and they contain information about our reasons for heading to Sevastopol.

'Briefing documents collected.' I announce happily.

'Good.' Verlaine smiles as she gets into her seat. 'How are you faring?'

'A little better now that I've had something to eat.' I admit as I take my seat. 'Taking my bag with me, in the event that it's needed. You? It's been about fifteen years since we last saw each other.'

'Same old shit.' Verlaine admits with a sigh. 'How has family life been for you?'

Now that's one question that I'm happy to answer, as my half-brother aside, my family life has been good. However, as one can expect, there have been a few blips along the way, as my dad died at seventy-five (Waits's dad died before he was born), and then mom died about three years ago.

'And now I'm here, because Waits is acting odd, and I want answers.' I sigh as Amanda sits down next to me.

'Of course you do, as he's your brother after all.' Verlaine confirms as we enter the system. 'Looks like we're making our final approach.'

I know what that means, and I go over a few things that I want to say to Waits. Ten minutes later, we (Samuels, Taylor, Amanda, and myself) stand up, and watch on the monitor as we approach Sevastopol. Connor punches in the co-ordinates, and Verlaine contacts Waits. The signal is fuzzy, although the words "serious" and "situation" come through.

'Two words I do not want to hear.' I whisper as I put my bag on my back.

'Will your bag fit inside an EVA suit?' Amanda asks out of curiosity.

'It will go inside a small container.' I reply happily.

Little do I know, my happiness is about to be cut short. Fortunately, I am pretty good with my hands, so I know how to keep trouble at bay even when I'm unarmed.

But that won't help when there are eight xenomorphs to deal with.

And that's at the minimum, as if this was a game and the modes were novice, easy, medium, hard, or nightmare, this one would be nightmare but times a hundred, as there are eight xenomorphs waiting for us, androids that will make Ash look like a teddy bear, humans that will one-shot kill us, hidden facehuggers.

When the time arrives, Samuels, Taylor, Amanda, and I, get into our EVA suits. Taylor is still giving it loads, and if there's one thing that we don't need, it's a moody bitch complaining about money-related issues.

'I've fitted Samuels' suit with a radio booster. Can only keep the Torrens in transit for twenty-four hours.' Verlaine says as we prepare for our spacewalk.

'You'll have heard from us by then.' Samuels confirms as we start walking.

And with that, we enter the airlock. Taylor is moaning about how her contract doesn't cover spacewalks, and Amanda – who is in front of me – lets us all know that it's perfectly safe. The container holding my bag is on my bag, and the moment the outer airlock door opens, we commence spacewalking.

'Will be a few minutes before we arrive.' Samuels announces through the radio booster.

'Good luck.' Verlaine says as we all listen in. 'Don't do anything stupid.'

That's gonna happen, albeit the other way around. We are more than halfway through the spacewalk, and that's when shit happens. Of course, it's just after Amanda has told Taylor that she's doing great, and before we know it, Taylor and Samuels have flown off, leaving just myself and Amanda. We manage to climb up to the airlock, and upon pulling the lever, I pull us both in, getting us as far away from the door as it quickly closes. The artificial gravity then comes online, and we fall to the ground.

'Jesus fuck that hurts!' I moan as I force myself up.

'We need to find Taylor and Samuels.' Amanda sighs as she starts to take her suit off.

'We'll worry about that later.' I reply as I do the same thing. 'Top priority is making sure everything still works.'

Fortunately, my weapons still work. My bag is pretty small, and I place it on my back. My legs are somewhat sore from hitting the ground, and I now have a slight concussion, although I know that it will get better. The snacks and drinks are also good, and we start walking.

'Looks like Waits has stopped giving a fuck about this place.' I sigh as we walk down a small corridor.

'What do you mean?' Amanda asks out of confusion.

I stop, and whip out my motion tracker. It doesn't work as well as it used to, but it still does its job.

'I'm keeping this out in case we find ourselves in a tight spot.' I announce with a sigh. 'Also, kudos to the maintenance team for not repairing the lights.'

At that moment, we walk over to an open pipe. It immediately explodes, forcing us to climb into the vent. Amanda goes first, and I climb in behind, covering for her in the event that something decides to attack. Now, some people might hate vents, but I don't, as back on Pandora, I used them quite a lot. It was an easier way to keep track of everything without raising alarm bells, and I know a good vent when I see one. Only negative being the size, as one has to be in an awkward position, and from what I can see, it's also a maintenance vent, with lights and wires. There are a few touchscreen monitors, although they have been powered down. I know what that means, as it means that there must be something going on. Fortunately, we make it through to the other end, and I immediately notice a flare on the ground.

'This should come in useful.' I smile as I pick up the flare.

'What's that?' Amanda asks out of curiosity.

'It's a flare.' I reply happily. 'Will distract anything that tries to kill us, although it does have a short timer, as the sparks don't last that long. However, it will buy us enough time to escape.'

The flare is quite chunky, but I am able to fit it into my bag. My motion tracker is picking up nothing, although I know that as soon as we start walking, something's gonna happen. It picks up absolutely everything that moves, and thanks to a modification that I had made shortly before Samuels came into the picture, it can detect whether things are above us or below us. However, like all gadgets, it can be misleading, so I have to keep one eye open at all times.

'Looks like someone forgot to do floor repairs.' Amanda pipes up, catching me by surprise.

I look up, and see that I am about to walk into my most certain death. Amanda yanks me backwards, and with a sigh, I follow her as she starts to walk on the wooden planks. The first one seems to be okay, but the second? Well, you know the drill, as the second plank looks like it is about to break. We start walking on it, and sure enough, it breaks, causing us to fall gracefully and gently land on our backs.

'If this were Pandora, someone would've had that fixed by now.' I moan as I force myself up.

'Jesus fuck!' Amanda screams as she follows suit.

I can see that the fall has caused Amanda's ankle to sprain slightly. As for me, I'm mostly okay, although my back is going to pay for it in the morning. My head is slightly better, and due to some expert on-the-spot planning, the contents of my bag are in one piece.

'Found my own flare.' Amanda announces as she walks over to a yellow box.

I nod with a smile, and we explore what is obviously the baggage area. It looks like something that one would find at an airport on Earth, with various different conveyor belts taking cases wherever they need to be. The overhead monitors are miraculously still on, although they are fixated on what appears to be the spaceflight terminal. It's a pretty normal thing to have, as on stations as big as this, there's always bound to be somebody wanting to do the wrong thing. As a result, CCTV monitors are found in all public places. They are connected to two-way microphones, so if need be, the person watching and the person who is being watched can talk without needing to be face to face.

Unfortunately, that can lead to problems.

The spaceflight terminal seems to be deserted. I quickly shift my focus, as Amanda pushes a red button, bringing a small platform down. It is a noisy fuck, and it immediately starts to draw attention from an unknown source, but thankfully, the "attention" runs off, allowing us to ascend and climb the ladder that is also in front of us. I ascend first, hoicking my bag over the edge as I gain my footing on what I'm guessing is not the second level. Using my free hand, I help Amanda do the same, and we grab some of the items that I have a feeling we are going to be needing.

'Sensor, compound b, bonding agent, blasting cap, some scj injectors, and scrap.' Amanda announces as a confused look forms on her face.

'Got room for them in my bag.' I reply happily. 'If need be, we can craft a few things.'

Little do I know, we're going to be fucked in that department, as craft supplies are going to be almost impossible to find, and with eight xenomorphs coming up, we're going to have to be careful not just in the keeping alive department but also in the scaring them off department. We then walk through a door, and as luck would have it, some fucker has turned the lights off. With Amanda in tow, I run up the stairs, and motion for her to power up the generator. It is a button-based affair, and she has to press the button thrice. She does so, and that immediately powers up the computer terminal.

'Maybe this will help turn the lights back on.' Amanda sighs as she looks at the monitor.

After searching, she locates the utility folder, and taps the "on" button with her finger. Seconds later, the lights come back on.

'Let's go!' A voice calls from below.

'Shit!' I silently cuss.

'What?' Amanda asks, becoming confused.

'They could've seen us… hey, what was that passcode that we just saw?' I reply and ask out of curiosity.

Amanda brings up the first folder, and looks at the passcode. It is for the door that is right in front of us, and she reads it out aloud. I remember it, and upon walking out of the room, I walk down a flight of stairs, and enter the code. The door immediately opens, and I notice that there is a blueprint for a medikit. It is useful stuff, as blueprints are basically instruction manuals, and medikits contain all the ingredients that one needs in order to regain their health after being injured. However, like all first aid packs, it does have its limitations, as it needs to be made just right, or else the chemical cocktail will cause death to the injectee. It is also injected subcutaneously, so no need to any IV injections of any type. I smile, and when Amanda walks up behind me, I let her know what I've found.

'Spaceflight terminal is open.' Amanda announces as we resume walking.

'Thanks for letting me know.' I say as I unknowingly bang my elbow. 'Any updates in the Verlaine department?'

'Nothing but static.' Amanda admits as we enter the spaceflight terminal. 'What the hell happened here?'

I take a look around, and see that it is not only deserted but a fucking ghost town. Absolutely nothing is open, and there is graffiti on the walls.

'Pick a flight, any flight.' Amanda giggles as she notices the overhead monitor.

'I'll take the flight to Bernard's Star for 6000 please, Jack.' I laugh as I notice another flight of stairs. 'Fancy going up in the world?'

Amanda looks at me, and I point at the flight of stairs. We both walk up them, and as luck would have it, the Torrens pops into view.

'WE'RE RIGHT HERE VERLAINE!' Amanda yells out loud.

I roll my eyes; Verlaine isn't going to hear us.

'And now for touchdown.' I say as I notice another flight of stairs. My tracker is full of activity, and when the shutters start to close, I jump. Fortunately, as we start to make our descent, an arcade comes into view. The gamestations are all fubar (fucked up beyond all recognition), and as luck would have it, there's another generator. Cue pressing the button thrice, and it immediately unlocks the door to the Chinese takeaway.

'Show yourselves.' I order as I draw my gun.

There's a light on the other end of the doorway, and I immediately know that somebody is watching us. I can't say who, but I know that somebody is watching our every move. I cautiously walk closer to the doorway, with Amanda following behind. Seconds later, I enter the doorway, and see nobody there.

'False a-fucking-larm.' I sigh as I put my gun back in its place.

'Someone was there, though.' Amanda protests as she shoots a look at me.

'But they manage to fuck off… hey, look at this.' I mention as I notice a floor vent.

Amanda nods, and takes a look. I open it, and we both climb in.

'These floor vents are far safer than the other vents.' I mention as we start crawling. 'Security is a little tighter, and these are also the perfect hiding spots for monitors and levers that you want to keep out of harm's way.'

'Have you ever used one before?' Amanda curiously asks.

'Many times.' I reply happily. 'However, being safer doesn't mean that we won't run into trouble, as we're still vulnerable on all sides.'

Amanda nods. I am right in front, and upon locating another opening, I open it, and we climb out. Despite my age and physical appearance, I am still pretty strong, and my former Marine training means that I can pull myself up onto ledges with ease. There are no free wires anywhere, although judging by what's now in front of me, I can see that somebody – or something – has been having a lot of fun.

'If we can make our way to comms, we should be good.' Amanda says as we walk over to the little vacuum.

'Yeah, but first, we need to find a way to get through here.' I mention as I start to look around.

Amanda presses a yellow button on the little vacuum, and it immediately moves out of the way, revealing a pathway that is very obviously an ex-vent. She is in front this time, and we both make it through unscathed.

And then the person who has been watching us makes himself visible.

'SHOW YOURSELF, ASSHOLE!' I scream as I draw my gun for the second time.

Amanda walks over to the dark hallway, and looks around. Again, there is nobody there, although she is now as worried as I am. I follow, and upon turning a corner, we see that the spaceflight terminal has been turned into a makeshift morgue.

'There's a rig on the door up ahead.' Amanda says as she shoots a look at me.

'Add to that the fact that the power is also out.' I mention as I start to look around.

I immediately notice a door, and walk through it. In the distance, I can hear both a cat and a non-human screeching sound. I then notice another generator, and after repeating the process, I turn everything back on.

'You finished in there?' Amanda asks me, causing me to jump.

Without replying, I walk out of the room, and into the makeshift morgue again.

'There's a room up above. Maybe that's got a maintenance jack.' I reply and suggest as I head for the flight of stairs. 'Hopefully, whilst we're up there, I can find some documents telling me about what Waits has gotten the fuck upto.'

Little do I know, Waits is responsible for the shit that we are about to be in. I then notice another recording device, and upon pressing play, Amanda and I both listen to what's being said. I let out a sigh, and we continue walking.

Upon reaching the top of the stairs, I take a hard right into a corridor. It is pretty dark, but there is an open door at the end. Amanda follows, and upon walking in, we notice a dead guy in what appears to be the evidence lock-up area.

'Oh… fuck!' Amanda whispers as a chill runs down her spine.

The guy is very obviously dead, and in his hand is a maintenance jack. The door is locked, so there's no way of getting in that way. However, there is a vent, and on my signal, Amanda climbs in, climbs the ladder, navigates her way through the vent, and drops down into the area. She then walks over to the dead guy, and removes the maintenance jack from his still-flexible hands.

'Have you ever used a maintenance jack before?' I ask Amanda as she breaks the rig lock.

'A few times.' Amanda replies happily. 'Pretty easy too.'

I nod, and watch with a smile as Amanda removes the rig from the door. It immediately opens, and she walks through.

'Now we can try that thing on that door downstairs.' I announce with a smile.

And with that, we make our way downstairs. Amanda breaks the rig lock, and it's at that moment that our friend appears.

'Turn around!' The man whisper-shouts as he points his gun at the back of Amanda's head. 'COME ON!'

Amanda turns around.

'We were boarding with two colleagues. EVA. We got separated during the blast.' Amanda says as she shivers.

The man notices me with my gun drawn and ready to shoot him dead.

'Ripley and Carter, from the Torrens.' I mention as I keep my gun on the man.

'There's no ship here!' The man whisper-shouts as he keeps his gun drawn.

'There is now… Axel.' I reply as I keep my hand on the trigger.

All crew members are required to have a name badge. That way, we can tell who they are without directly having to ask them. They are also on the bodies, and it makes them easier to identify.

'Well that's good news… something just flew here.' Axel mentions as he starts to walk around like a madman.

'Like what?' I ask as I become suspicious.

Axel mentions that there is a killer on Sevastopol. He is obviously worried, holding onto the maintenance jack as if it were a teddy bear. If I had my way, the guy would be dead (I have dealt with him before, and I'll just say that he got transferred over to Sevastopol for something pretty serious), but thanks to Amanda promising him a place on the ship, he decides that today will be "her lucky day". She grabs the maintenance jack, and with my gun still drawn and ready to shoot, she removes the rig, and we – she, me, and Axel – walk through.

'So what brings you here?' Axel asks me as I walk with my gun pointed at him.

'I need answers.' I reply as I walk behind. 'Don't think I haven't forgotten what you did, as it may have been years, but my memory is still fresh.'

'I wouldn't expect anything else, as I deserve all the shit I get as a result.' Axel confirms with a sigh. 'If you want to shoot me, do so now, although I am crucial if you are to get to the systech spire without being killed, so you might need me around for a little while.'

At that moment, we come across a young man and woman in an elevator. I crouch down alongside Amanda, and we both watch as Axel chats with them. We are given Beatles-related names, and when Amanda asks them for instructions on how to get to comms, her request is immediately denied. Good thing too, as not everybody who lives on Sevastopol knows everything about the place.

After a somewhat tense elevator ride featuring talk about monsters, we finally make it to yet another level. I immediately notice a pair of guys with shotguns in their hand, and that's when it starts to click in my head that something is really not right. Axel opens up a wall vent, and we all climb through, reaching what he says has been his home for a week. It resembles a bunker, and in the corner, I see a touchscreen monitor that is still working. It is playing what appears to be banjo music, which those who know me know that I absolutely love, and when Axel mentions the flashlights, we pick them up. They are earmounted, and look like earphones, but only they have a built-in microphone aswell as a flashlight. The batteries are replaceable, and as luck would have it, there are a few battery packs lying around, so I pick them up. Axel then opens up another vent, and we climb through.

And that's when shit starts to hit the fan.

We catch some of what our pals are saying, not wanting to make ourselves heard. Their shotguns will kill with just one hit, and upon leaving the vent, Axel lets us know that there is another one but that he can't find it.

'We'll go look for the fucking thing.' I say as Amanda and I turn our flashlights on.

This part of the station – what I'm guessing is part of the cargo area – looks like Axel has used it quite a few times. It takes a bit of time, but we are finally able to locate the vent which has been painted as if it were a door in ancient Egypt when King Herod wanted all of the firstborn males to be killed and those who wanted to be saved had to paint a red mark over their door using the blood of a lamb. That ended up being proven to be bullshit, and when Axel walked over, he opened the vent.

'That's about ten vents since we got ashore.' I sigh as I start crawling.

'You got a problem with that?' Axel asks as he leads the way.

'No, but it is predictable.' I sigh as we finally come close to the exit.

The exit opens up, and we all spill out. Amanda's ankle looks like it is on the mend, and when we come across an open doorway, Axel motions for us to crouch down.

'There's too many to take on.' Axel whispers as he looks around.

'Take on?' Amanda asks out of confusion.

'If the generator went down, they'd have to check it out.' Axel replies as he keeps his voice down. 'You're smaller than us, so you'll make less noise.'

I shoot a look at Amanda, and nod as she makes her way over to the generator. There are three guys and a girl, and I know for a fact that we'll be dead if they see us. Seconds later, the generator "mysteriously dies", and that's when we make our move.

'Nice work there, Rip.' I beam as I pat Amanda's shoulder.

'Should keep them occupied for a while.' Amanda replies happily.

We then enter a room that has a pair of consoles. Both of them are powered down, and my motion tracker is picking up some rather suspicious activity coming from behind and seemingly from a high-up wall vent.

'Assholes have cut us off!' Axel sighs as he looks at the door-side console. 'You'll both have to go to the one on the other side.'

Amanda and I obey the order.

'One of you will have to press the button at the same time as me.' Axel mentions as we get into position. 'One… two… three.'

I press the button, and immediately, the door opens. Axel is grabbed from behind, and Amanda and I start running.

'You bums think you can take what you want?' The man asks Axel as they fight.

'GET THE FUCK OFF ME!' Axel screams back.

Amanda whacks the man in the spine. The man keels over, and Axel lands a shot in his head, killing him. That attracts our pals, and when they spot us, we are forced to run.

'You killed that guy!' Amanda cries as she looks at Axel.

'Because he was going to kill me!' Axel not-so-silently whispers. 'You and Carter saved my life.'

At that moment, I can hear chains being rustled. Axel walks backwards, and immediately, drool starts dripping onto his arm.

'The fuck have I got on me?' Axel asks as he becomes worried.

Seconds later, a sharp object pierces through Axel's stomach. He screams in agony, although it is short-lived, as he is dragged into the vent.

'We need to keep moving.' Amanda pants as we start to make our way to the transit station.

I pull out my flamethrower, and immediately notice a xenomorph crouching down about the transit car slot. I shoot some bursts of fire at it, and it immediately flees. It is just one of the eight xenomorphs, and I have a feeling that we might be meeting up with the others soon. I press the button to call for the transit car, and upon noticing that company was again headed our way, I motion for Amanda to crouch down behind the crate, whilst I stay out in the open, eagerly waiting to serve some more fire to xenomorph faces.

'Transit car here yet?' I ask Amanda as I remain on xenomorph watch.

'Not yet.' Amanda replies as she starts to get worried.

By that point, it has been almost a minute since I pressed the button. I swear to God that Waits is gonna be in even more trouble when I meet him, and as luck would have it, there is an android nearby. I keep my focus on the vent whilst walking over, and upon seeing the android, I access its mainframe, and program it so that it turns violent when it sees Waits. Only one person will be spared during the frenzy, and his name is Ricardo, as he is a decent guy, and I want him to return home to his family.

The transit car arrives seconds later, and Amanda and I make our way in. I walk over to the console, and order the car to send us to the systech spire. Seconds later, the door closes, right as a xenomorph proceeds to jump down from the vent.

'We got lucky just then.' Amanda smiles as she sits down.

'Those bastards are fucking lethal.' I sigh as I do the same thing. 'If you're lucky, they'll just flat-out kill you, but that doesn't always happen, as they take survivors, imprison them using resin, place an egg in front of them, facehugger attacks, ribcage gone. What's even worse, is that they can turn viable tissue into more eggs.'

'Shit!' Amanda cussed as we went under a speedbump.

'Shit doesn't cover it, as I'm no theist, but if a devil existed, those bastards are his work.' I reply as I hold onto the rail.

Amanda nods in agreement. I can see she is still worried, as even a smile can't hide the fact that we are now in deep shit. There are monitors inside the car, tuned into Shit TV, and my bag is right in front of me. Amanda has one aswell, and when we finally arrive at the systech spire, the transit car door opens, and we make our way out. I immediately notice a power unit, and upon walking over, I touch the screen, and redirect the power to the unstable system. Amanda takes care of the door that's behind us, and as if by luck, the dead guy that's right there is carrying a medikit. She puts it into her bag, and she walks over.

'If we head up to the lobby area, we might be able to find a route that will take us to comms.' I announce as I shoot a look at Amanda. 'How's your ankle?'

'Sore but not making me limp.' Amanda replies as we start walking. 'Your head?'

'Better, although the rest of my body is a little sore from all the falls we've had.' I admit as we make our way up the flight of stairs.

The lobby area is through the large door and to the left. Amanda walks through first, with me covering in case our friend decides to pop up. When it does, I shoot a few bursts of fire at it.

'Work damn you!' A female voice says as we enter the lobby.

At that moment, the xenomorph runs off. Amanda and I walk over to the seating area, and the female notices us, warns us to stay back, and starts shooting at us. We narrowly escape, but unfortunately, it brings some unwanted attention, as the woman runs up a flight of stairs, to alert her companions of our presence.

'Go… now!' I whisper as Amanda starts to make her way over to the elevator.

Amanda creeps over to the elevator, and picks up an access tuner. It is the only old-school piece of tech on the station, as some areas still require a fair bit of hacking. She then creeps back over, and we make our way up the stairs.

'Give me a flare.' I order once we are at the top of the stairs.

Amanda passes me a flare, and upon activating it, I throw it away from the direction that we have to go in. Unfortunately, it also attracts some of the xenomorphs, and we end up having to hide as we wait for them to pass. When they finally do, we make our move, and head towards a stairwell. We make our way down, and upon reaching the desired level, we make our way over to the control room, and Amanda picks up both a gun and a keycard.

'Something tells me we're gonna set off some alarms here.' I sigh as I look around.

I just know that something is going to happen, and when Amanda uses the keycard, we enter what is obviously some sort of computer lab. It is pretty state-of-the-art, and I take a look around.

'Looks like this guy's had a bad time.' I announce, catching Amanda by surprise.

Amanda walks over, and upon taking a look at the dead guy in the chair, says the exact phrase that is on my mind. We both walk over, and surprise surprise, there are more blueprints. I pick them up – three in total now – and we both make our way over to the safe room. Amanda walks in first, her eyes full of hope when she sees the flight recorder. She presses a few buttons, and if surprise-to-anger had a look, her face would be it, as she throws the flight recorder like there's no tomorrow.

And the alarm goes off.

The whole place is in lockdown. Amanda freaks out, and it is then that I notice that there is a data cell behind some of the secure units. I move them out of the way, and upon taking the access tuner, I insert the new data cell.

'One working access tuner.' I sigh as Amanda tries to figure out what's going on.

Amanda looks up at me, and we head back over to the door. It is now a hacking job, and upon tuning in, I click on the symbols that match the hacking code, and I open the door. We are now somewhat free, although upon leaving the control room, we notice that the entire area is in lockdown.

'Looks like we've got to disable security lockdown.' Amanda sighs as she looks at me.

'Pretty easy job.' I reply with a look of determination on my face.

And with that, we make our way down the corridor. There's another computer lab to the right, and upon hacking the door, I let us both in. We gather whatever craft items we can find, and I manage to locate a console that looks like it is still working.

'Watch the vent.' I order as Amanda stands right next to me.

Amanda nods, and I press a few buttons, disabling the lockdown. Immediately, a xenomorph jumps out of the vent, causing us both to duck behind the desk. Its tail is huge, and when it finally leaves the room, we make our move. I get out my tracker, and mentally pray to the cosmos as we try to keep as quiet as possible whilst making our way back to the stairwell, knowing that we are vulnerable even with all of my weapons.

We make our way up the stairwell without any hitches, and Amanda hacks the door that leads back into the lobby. At first, it is relatively quiet, but then we hear gunshots and screeching, and it is then that I realise that there is a party going on down below.

'Looks like they're having fun down there.' Amanda sighs as she keeps hold of her new gun.

I nod, and we make our way over to the rail. My body immediately freezes, as I see eight xenomorphs and four dead bodies.

'I think we're in trouble.' I whisper as I get my flamethrower out for the third time.

Amanda takes a look, and sure enough, her body also freezes. We then start moving; staying still will just put us at risk of being killed, and when the xenomorphs all fuck, we head down the stairs, and I hack the elevator. Doors open seconds later, and we make our way in. I press the button, and the doors close again, taking us up.

'I really hope that we don't run into more trouble.' Amanda sighs as we stand still.

'Oh we will.' I reply sadly.

The door then opens, and we walk over to the control room. It is locked from the outside, but there is a working joe in there. Its eyes are red, and it just stands there, watching us as if it wants to kill us.

And it does want to kill us.

We make our way down the steps, and head into a very long and very dark corridor. There are floodlights, but they seem to either be on the fritz or completely dead. We continue walking, though, and I spot another joe. It's eyes are also red, and without a second thought, I pull out my shotgun.

And that's when the weapons issues start.

My shotgun jams, rendering it unusable. I shoot a look at Amanda, and we both immediately come to the conclusion that we are either going to either kill or be killed. We decide to kill, and we run straight for the joe, ambushing it before it can even turn around.

'We need to get out of here!' I announce as my motion tracker suddenly beeps.

We are royally fucked, as the joe is merely stunned instead of killed. Fortunately, there is a door up ahead, so we make our way over as fast as possible. That's when I notice that there is another motion tracker on the table, and I motion for Amanda to pick it up. Unfortunately, it's already given up the ghost, as even though it still works, the picture is incredibly fuzzy, and it keeps spazzing out. I then notice a terminal, and upon seeing that it is in just as bad a condition as the tracker, I kick it with my steel-toecapped right boot, bringing it back to life.

'Maybe this will give us door access.' Amanda says as she looks through the folders.

I nod as I keep on lookout, and sure enough, Amanda finds the right folder. She clicks on "select", and within seconds, the door opens. However, it is only open for about a second, before it comes crashing back down.

'SHIT!' I cuss as I jump.

Whilst jumping, I manage to fall over. Amanda helps me up, and we set about looking for an alternative route. It's then that I remember that there a elevator in the transit station, so we make a run for it.

'Are you sure this will lead to comms?' Amanda asks me once we are back in the lobby.

'No, but I do feel lucky.' I reply with a smile. 'Thanks for helping me up, by the way. Saved me from breaking something that I didn't want to break.'

Amanda nods with a smile, and we make our way over to the elevator. I press the button, and sure enough, it takes us to comms.

'Gonna have to blow the door up.' I announce out of nowhere. 'Give me that pipe bomb that's over there.'

Amanda walks over to the dead body that is lying on the ground, and picks up the pipe bomb. She carefully hands it to me, and once we are a safe distance away, I throw the pipe bomb, causing the door to burst open. Its shockwaves also cause the door downstairs to fall onto the floor, and we immediately have to run for cover, as the sound has attracted the xenomorphs. I hurriedly get out my flamethrower, and we back up onto another flight of stairs.

'You are entering a restricted area! Please leave!' The joe in the control room says to us as it sits at the desk.

I look up, and give the joe the middle finger right as it tells us that we have been logged with Sevastopol.

'There's gotta be another way in.' Amanda sighs as she shakes her head.

I immediately place my hand over Amanda's mouth, as there are still xenomorphs walking around. We wait for them to enter the vent, before going about the task that is now at hand. However, our task is temporarily thrown off course, when I remember that there is a small hallway that has a door which has been locked with a rig. Amanda hands me the maintenance jack, and I make my way over to the door, open it, run in, pick up what's needed, run to the other door, pull the lever, run out, and run over to the door that needs to be hacked. It is a different type of hacking job, as it involves precision. Fortunately, I have that on my side, so I am able to hack the door on the first attempt.

Right as I hear footsteps.

Amanda taps me on the shoulder, and I shoot some more bursts of fire at the two xenomorphs that seem to have returned. I manage to scare them off, and I follow Amanda into the small room, where there is another vent. We proceed to enter said vent, and we immediately watch as the joe is confronted by a guy whose surname is Hughes.

'Good day.' The joe says after killing Hughes.

I recoil in horror, and with Amanda leading, I make my way out of the vent. The security cameras are on, but as luck would have it, I hear a power unit nearby. I make my way through the door, and upon accessing the power unit, I turn the camera feed off, so as not to attract company of any kind. Amanda presses the button to call the elevator, and when it arrives, she calls for me.

'Hmmmm.' A joe says from up above.

I bolt the fuck out of there, and dash into the elevator, right as both joes make their way out.

'This could require my attention.' The first joe announces as it starts walking towards us.

Amanda hits the button, and the elevator door closes. I sit down, examining my hands which seem to be okay despite a few areas looking blistered.

'Thanks for saving my ass just then.' Amanda smiles as she crouches down in front of me.

'Heard them coming, and I knew I had to act. Gonna need to get my shotgun out soon, as there might be joes there, and we don't want to risk being killed by them.' I reply as I look at my hands. 'Flamethrowers always do this, as they get quite hot, and even though mine automatically refills, it still packs a punch.'

'Like I noticed.' Amanda smiles as she takes hold of my hand.

'When all of this is over, we can go for a drink somewhere.' I add as the elevator starts to slow down.

'Whiskey and coke.' Amanda happily replies.

Before I can say anything, the door opens. We are now in comms, and I notice a door leading to a stairwell that will take us to the upper unit. Amanda walks next to me, and upon reaching the upper unit, we make our way over to the terminal, and I try my luck with it, only to find that only internal communications are online.

'That's just great.' Amanda whisper-sighs as she scratches her head.

'Looks like we're gonna be here for quite a while longer.' I sigh as I start walking.

Amanda nods, and we make our way downstairs. There is a corridor over to the right in the large comms unit, but there is also a joe-sized problem. Fortunately, there is a floor vent there, and we decide to make good use of it. It is somewhat larger than the other one, but that's a bonus, and it has doors on the side, allowing for easy exit where and when need be.

Little do I know, trouble is about to go down big-time.

We make our way out of the vent, managing to avoid detection. I pull out my shotgun just to be on he safe side, and when the joe does finally notice me, I pull the trigger. It still comes my way, so I shoot more shells into it, until my shotgun finally runs out.

'Fucker still after us?' Amanda asks as we run through the corridor.

'Fuckers, yes.' I reply as more joes start to follow.

There are at least five of them, and when we finally enter a small room, I see one on the floor. It looks battered, so I jack it a few times in the neck, completely fucking up its internal systems. However, that alerts the joes, although thankfully, there are no xenomorphs to deal with in this area, as anti-xenomorph security measures have been put in place by a survivor whose ID name tag says that his name is Mike Tanaka. I sigh; he's likely dead by now, although the current problem is much more important, as we try to make our way over to where we hear Samuels speaking on repeat. It's a message of urgency, as it appears that he and Taylor managed to get ashore, although judging by his use of words, some rather nasty shit has happened.

'We need to lose them… NOW!' Amanda whisper-yells as she looks over her shoulder.

I pull out my bolt gun, and immediately start firing bolts into the joes. They only graze the joes, who by this point are right on our asses.

'THEY'RE NOT GOING DOWN!' I yell as I fire the last bolt.

'You're gonna have to get physical with them!' Amanda whisper-yells whilst walking into what looks like another computer lab.

Fortunately, I do have one last trick up my sleeve, as I have a noisemaker that I thankfully found enough items to craft during our unexpected detour when heading to comms. I throw it, and thankfully, the joes manage to divert their attention to the bloody thing, giving Amanda and myself enough time to walk over to the console and talk to Samuels.

'Samuels… you're alive… it's Ripley.' Amanda says as she looks at the screen.

'We thought we had lost you both.' Samuels replies as he looks up.

'Same here, pal.' I confirm with a sigh. 'Ran into a bit of trouble.'

'The Seegson androids are killing people.' Amanda chips in, catching Samuels by surprise.

'But that's contrary to synthetic programming.' Samuels protests, obviously having not seen what we've seen.

'We think Seegson has a different idea about programming.' Amanda replies as she lowers her tone. 'And there's something else here… alien organisms.'

'Alien organisms?' Samuels inquires, becoming confused.

'There are alien creatures here, Samuels.' I reply as I stand guard. 'They're big and they're lethal. You and Taylor need to find a safe place.'

'Taylor is hurt, guys.' Samuels protests as he looks away.

I become worried.

'How bad?' I ask Samuels, hoping for an okay answer.

'Pretty bad.' Samuels replies solemnly. 'We need medical supplies, or else the injury will kill her. I will send a transit car to you.'

So now we're on medical duties, which means that we have to run through comms again, use the elevator again, and hope that the cosmos doesn't give us any more shit to deal with.

'You've gotta be shitting me!' Amanda sighs as the alarm sounds.

I pick up the EMP blueprint, and we run out of the room. We have company, but because of the amount of adrenaline running through me, I manage to force them out of the way, making sure that they harm neither me nor Amanda.

But there is a surprise waiting for us.

A joe is standing in front of the elevator. Fortunately, there is a vent nearby, so we climb in, climb up the ladder, climb out on the upper level, run down the stairs, and get into the elevator without them looking.

'Shotgun and bolt gun are out of bullets.' I announce with a sigh as I sit back down.

'We must find a way to kill them.' Amanda mentions as she starts to walk around.

'There is one way, as I jacked that joe that was on the floor to death.' I reply as the elevator starts to slow down.

We reach the lower comms area about a minute later, and upon seeing the joes, we sprint into the corridor, make our way into the stairwell, and sprint down the stairs, praying to the cosmos that the xenomorphs will not hear us.

We are wrong.

The moment we leave the stairwell, a xenomorph comes running towards us, knocking over the joe. I shoot some bursts of fire at it, walking towards it as I do so, and when it fucks off, I turn my attention to the one that is hovering above the vent, shooting a burst of fire directly into its face.

'YOU DON'T LIKE THAT NOW, DO YA?' I yell as the xenomorph runs away.

Amanda taps me on the shoulder, alerting me to the fact that the joe has stood up and is now walking towards us with the intent to kill. We immediately start running, playing dodge with at least two more joes as we head to the elevator that will take us back to the lobby. It's a pretty short ride, and upon re-entering the lobby, I elegantly jack the pretend-dead joe that is lying there waiting to internally decapitate me.

But it brings some unwanted attention.

Amanda and I both run out of the lobby, me shooting bursts of fire at the xenomorphs as they chase us like madmen. The transit car is already there for us, and upon making our entrance, the doors close, and we head off to the medical tower.

'Did anybody ever tell you that you look like an old bluegrass musician?' Amanda asks me as I sit down next to her.

'Never.' I admit with a smile. 'Who did you have in mind?'

'A guy called Stephen Lind.' Amanda replies as she examines her gun. 'His nickname was Sammy, and he died in the 2050s. You look and sound exactly like him.'

I take that as a compliment.

'You, however, are even better, and the fact that you've saved my ass about a hundred times since we got here just goes to show that.' Amanda happily adds.

Before I can reply, we reach the medical tower. Its official name is San Christabel, although some call it scimed. The door opens, and we walk over to Samuels, who is standing there waiting for us.

'Good to see that you finally made it.' Samuels says to us as we all walk over to where Taylor is lying.

'How is she?' Amanda asks, wanting to know the answer.

'She's getting worse.' Samuels admits as we all crouch down.

Taylor asks about us, but Samuels tells her to rest, and that we are going to find help.

'What if these creatures show up?' Samuels asks as he looks up at me.

Amanda wants to tell them to hide, but I have a better idea, so I give Samuels my flamethrower. Amanda shoots a worried look at me, but I let her know that there's always one to be found in the hospital area. Besides, Samuels and Taylor are far more vulnerable than we are, and we say goodbye to them.

'Are you sure there's gonna be one there?' Amanda asks me as we head towards the upper medical floor.

'There should be.' I reply, hopeful.

Little do we know, we're out of luck. My stun baton is going to be useless against the xenomorphs, and my gun will just attract them if I pull the trigger. I send a quick message to Samuels, letting him know that I will need the flamethrower back once we have returned with supplies.

'Hello.' A voice says, catching us by surprise.

'Ripley and Carter here, and we need a doctor.' Amanda replies as she looks around.

'Then get into the elevator!' The voice replies in a somewhat frantic tone. 'There's no time to lose!'

As if our day can't get any worse, the elevator cuts out.

'We're going to have to go the long way, sir!' I announce as I walk over to the control room.

'You haven't got much time!' The voice replies as the person owning it becomes even more frantic.

I throw a chair against the glass, breaking it completely. There is a keycard there, and without cutting myself, I manage to climb in, and retrieve it. Amanda holds my motion tracker, and when she sees a dot appear on the other side of the door that's behind me, she motions for me to jump out. I immediately do so, and walk back over to the elevator, which has a keycard slot.

'Elevator going down.' The female voice announces as the doors close.

'What was behind that door?' I ask Amanda as I adjust my bag.

'Not sure, but I think it might've been one of them.' Amanda replies as she hands my motion tracker back to me.

We arrive at the room where the service vent is, and I search for the flamethrower. To my dismay, there isn't one, which means that we have to come up with another plan that doesn't involve distracting xenomorphs.

'If you need a flamethrower, it's up here.' The voice says as we climb into the vent. 'Am closing the vent behind both of you, just to be safe.'

And now we are unfucked, as we are about to meet Dr Kuhlmann, and he has got a flamethrower waiting for us. We drop into the psych ward with a thud, and after regaining balance, Amanda leads me up the small flight of stairs, and into the waiting room. I immediately see the flamethrower, and I pick it up, knowing that it has enough fuel to see us through scimed.

'I'm Kuhlmann.' Kuhlmann says to us from behind a pane of glass.

'I'm Paul Carter, and this is Amanda Ripley.' I reply as I walk over. 'Our colleague is injured, and we need a doctor.'

'I'm a doctor.' Kuhlmann replies with a cough.

I can tell he's been "using", as he has those eyes on him. He is also hyperventilating, and when he tells us that we must go and find a keycard from some fuck whose surname is Morley, I can't help but silently curse, as it means that we are going to be vulnerable, and if the xenomorphs decide to pay a visit, we'll be on our own.

And that's exactly what we have waiting for us.

I press the override button on the door, and Amanda leads the way. The wall-mounted monitors are completely broken save for a few sparks of electricity, and from what we can see, there are at least three dead bodies. I also see a few dead facehuggers, and upon locating Morley's office, Amanda hacks the door, and we both walk in. I log into the terminal, and look for the passcode which is seventeen-zero-two (the previous one being zero-three-four-zero).

'We've found the passcode, Kuhlmann.' I announce via microphone.

'We'll need the physical keycard too. Find it.' Kuhlmann orders as red warning lights come on.

At that moment, we start to panic. We're not alone in this area, and upon walking out of the room, we get into a crouching position. We slowly but surely creep our way over to one of the beds, and I pull Amanda underneath as a xenomorph proceeds to drop down from the vent.

'This seems to be a very small area, so we need to be extra careful.' I whisper as I grab Amanda's arm.

'Copy that.' Amanda whispers back.

The day room has been blasted to kingdom come, so we know that we are unable to go through there. I know that this means trouble, and when another xenomorph drops down nearby, I immediately see red.

We're in trouble.

The first xenomorph starts walking, and when it gets to a safe distance, I creep out from under the bed, and immediately creep over to the nearest doorway. Amanda follows, and we slowly start to make our way towards where the day room should be, careful so as not to alert the xenomorphs to our presence. I keep my motion tracker out, and when it beeps, I quickly make my way over to a nearby "shelter" which looks like it has been just recently deserted.

'I think there's one right here.' Amanda whispers as she cowers under a bed on the other side of the hallway.

I don't need to check my motion tracker; there is a xenomorph walking around nearby. It hisses, and its friend hisses in reply, signalling that both of them know something is here with them. Seconds later, a third one enters from stage left. I take a look through a hole in the side of the "shelter", and see that the third xenomorph is right in front of the door that we need to use.

'I'm gonna have to throw something.' I signal as I pick up a discarded sheet of metal.

Amanda nods, and I throw the piece of metal down the hallway right behind me. It is located next to the short-term psychiatric ward, and the xenomorphs capitalize on it, giving myself and Amanda enough time to creep over to the door and enter the passcode. Once the door opens, we both creep in, and I press the emergency override button, buying us some more time before the xenomorphs realise that we have magically vanished into thin air. I know it won't be for long, though, as these bastards are pretty fucking clever, and they will soon start to sense that we are still around. I press the emergency override once again, right as one of them spots us. Amanda freezes, and I grab hold of the flamethrower, before we run down a small corridor that has a room to the right, complete with a few tables and another blueprint. We immediately crouch under the tables, right as the xenomorphs jump down from the vent and start running towards us. I slowly make my way out from under the table, and shoot some bursts of fire, making them all back off, before running down the corridor again, and entering the long-term psychiatric unit. Amanda quietly followed me, and we crept around, scanning every room. There were a few gates up, although they were part of the psychiatric intensive care unit, which was closed-off from the rest of the floor and only accessible using fingerprint detection.

'Shit!' Amanda cusses out loud.

I turn around, and see a xenomorph crawling out from a wall vent. It is one of the more mature ones, and I shoot bursts of fire at it. It immediately crawls back into the vent, but not before the others come rushing in, forcing us to back into one of the rooms and press the emergency override button to lock the door so that they can't come in.

And as luck would have it, there is a dead body in the room.

I rummage through it's pockets, and smile upon locating the needed keycard. I also locate a power station, and upon activating the emergency alarm, I open the door, and Amanda and I both run out. We make our way towards the door leading from the long-term unit to the waiting area, and I unlock it, allowing us to get through without causing any trouble. We then make our way back into the seated area, and over to the control room.

'DAMN YOU KUHLMANN! YOU KNEW THOSE THINGS WERE HERE!' Amanda yells as she looks at Kuhlmann.

'Now that's unfair! I thought they might be there! There's a difference! Give me the passcode!' Kuhlmann whisper-yells as he magically regains his energy.

'Seventeen-zero-two!' I not-so-quietly reply. 'Now, get us down to the dispensary, or else I'm gonna light a flare and shove it right up your ass!'

Without hesitation, Kuhlmann walks into the other room. We somewhat follow him, and we watch as he punches in the passcode. He thinks he's coming with us, but as soon as I see a dot appear behind the door, I smile, as he's fucked beyond repair. He then makes his way to said door, and upon the door opening, he is grabbed by one of the xenomorphs.

'We need to get out of here before they detect that we're still here.' I say to Amanda as we make our way towards the lift.

Amanda nods, and I insert the keycard, before pressing the button. I feel a sense of relief wash over me, knowing that I have just managed to fend off a few of the xenomorphs. However, our troubles are not over, as there's noise in the vents above us, meaning that they are following us.

We arrive at the morgue about a minute later. I can tell that's what it is, as the lovely smell of decaying corpses is in the air.

'Looks like shit has gone down here.' Amanda whispers as we make our way to the middle door.

'Enough for someone to jam a stun baton into the door.' I mention with a wink.

Amanda grabs the stun baton, and yanks it out, forcing the door to reopen. The room is obviously a control room, and on both sides are what appear to be room-sized freezers that each have two coolant tanks assigned to them.

'One of the tanks is missing.' Amanda announces as she gets to work.

I curse in my head, as that means that one of us is going to have to go and locate the missing coolant tank. I know it will be me, so I look in both rooms. As luck would have it, the one on the left has what appears to be a spare coolant tank, so I motion to Amanda, and she motions for me to come through with it. However, my plans are thwarted, when a joe appears out of nowhere. I run through, melee the joe with the coolant tank (bursting said coolant tank), and immediately attract some company of the xenomorph kind. I let them know who is boss around here, and upon seeing that the coolant tank is fucked, I hack into the terminal, and find a backdoor that allows me to get into the room on the right. I immediately activate it, and upon locating another power station, I open it up, and redirect the power to the vent. Amanda is busy rewiring her motion tracker, bringing it back online so that it can help cover both of our asses in the motion department. I then motion for her to follow me, and we make our way over to the vent. It's another one with a ladder inside, and it doesn't help that there is a junction right above the ladder, meaning that we could be being watched.

Fortunately, that is not the case.

But unfortunately, that does mean jumping out of the vent again. I am in front of Amanda, who I can see is watching over her shoulder. We then make the drop, and I moan slightly as I force myself up.

'Never thought I'd have to do that more than once.' I moan as I grab onto the nearest grabbable object.

'Did you have to do it on Pandora?' Amanda inquires out of curiosity.

'Quite a few times, but not like that.' I moan as I regain my composure. 'How are you holding up?'

'Motion tracker is somewhat working again.' Amanda replies as she crouches down. 'We're not alone.'

'Well I know that, as mine's been showing at least a hundred dots all over the place.' I add as I follow suit.

At that moment, I hear an explosion. My instinct is to go and check it out, but I know for a fact that there might be company, so I wait it out.

'What do you think that was?' Amanda asks me, becoming worried.

'I don't know, but it sounds close by.' I confirm with a sigh.

And that's the truth. Once all forms of activity have somewhat died down, we make our move.

'Looks like we won't need a fucking keycard.' I sigh as we enter what is obviously the general medical area. 'Gone to hell, though, and we're more vulnerable than we think we are… oh fuck, there's humans here too. Not friendly from what I can guess.'

'How can you tell?' Amanda asks out of curiosity.

'Their tone of voice, as they're fixated on survival. Sadly for them, a few of our friends have decided to drop down, so they're gonna be fucked.' I reply right as a joe starts to come alive. It is a hazmat joe, from what I can tell, and it is harder to melee-kill than the other joes. Fortunately, there's a live wire at joe-face-level, and I shake my head as it unknowingly walks into it, bursting into flames and then dying like a complete and utter tit.

'At least we know that the joes are also fucking stupid.' I sigh with a giggle.

'Maybe we should use that to our advantage.' Amanda mentions as a xenomorph drops down.

I pull Amanda underneath a bed. One of the humans notices us, and runs our way, attracting the xenomorph. I count to three in my head, and we immediately make a run for it, not caring that the xenomorph is chasing us. We eventually manage to break its line of sight, and I let out a sigh of relief when we see that the operating theater is nearby.

'The meds that Taylor needs should be in there.' I whisper as the xenomorph continues to walk around.

At that second, another gunshot is heard, and the xenomorph runs off, causing some of the machines to fall over and completely break. I creep over to the theater entrance, and upon giving the door a good kick, I manage to open it, and Amanda follows as I walk in. She grabs the box of meds, which is pretty large given the circumstances, and we both hide behind some cabinets. It is one of those theaters that has an automated surgery table, which is going to come in handy for both myself and Amanda later on (no spoilers, but we're gonna run into some deep shit that almost ends our lives).

'We need to move.' Amanda whispers into my ear, catching me by surprise.

I heed Amanda's warning, and we make our move.

'The hospital exit has been blocked off. You need to find a way to open it back up.' Samuels says through internal comms.

'How are you holding up on your end?' Amanda asks out of curiosity.

'We've had to build a shelter, as we've heard gunshots. They will alert the creatures, so be careful out there.' Samuels mentions with a sigh.

'We know.' Amanda sighs as she shoots a look at me.

We continue making our way down the corridor. There is a large room at the end, with a floor-to-ceiling window that shows part of the gas giant and the parent star. I'm guessing that it must be the medical version of a server farm, as a closer look reveals two generators. I motion for Amanda to go to the one on the right, whilst I go to the one on the left. On the count of three, we both press the buttons. Repeat the process twice more, and the central hub comes online. I see a joe walk out from stasis, and without a second thought, I run over, and initiate full on melee mode on the fucker, killing it before it sees Amanda. I then hack into the terminal, and open all doors.

Chase sequence is initiated.

Amanda and I run through the hospital as fast as we can, dodging human survivors and throwing objects to distract the xenomorphs. Upon finally entering what appears to be a waiting room, we are hit using remote charges, but it doesn't stop us from salmon-laddering up into the ceiling vent. Neither Amanda nor I mind, as all we are thinking about aside from trying not to get killed by xenomorphs is trying not to fall into a literal lake of fire. We succeed, making it into the vent with only a few temporary sore spots from having to heave ourselves up using our arms. We then crawl through the vent, flaming more than a few xenomorphs as they decide to pay us a visit.


	2. Chapter 2

After a few short minutes of post-xenomorph nothingness, we finally enter another room. It is closed-off-as-of-that-particular-moment from the rest of the waiting area, and the only light is from the elevator. We make our way in, and I press the button.

'Somehow, I don't think this is gonna be a quick run.' I sigh as I sit down.

'Wouldn't surprise me at all.' Amanda admits as she stays in a standing position. 'You did really good, though.'

'You did even better, as I just did the basic stuff. Also found a few documents, and… well… when the android finds him, he's fucking gone.'

It is then that Amanda realizes that I am not as forgiving as she thinks I might be. She did see me sort the joe out, and as for why I'm using both joes and androids, it's because it is standard protocol to do so. Same with synthetics and artificial humans, as they are walking machines, and some of them have human-like qualities (Samuels) whereas others do not. There are also autobots, which are androids that have been created by other androids, and various other android types.

'So what part does he have in all of this?' Amanda asks me out of curiosity.

'He's a Weyland-Yutani operative. He informed them of the xenomorph homeworld before he became a Marshall. These alien organisms that are here? They weren't brought onboard by accident, as he told Marlow to go to that planet. Now look what's happened, and now Waits wants us to believe that some unplanned disaster is happening right before our eyes. Shame I only found out about it through the documents, although I wasn't lying when I told you everything else.'

'I know you weren't, and I don't blame you.' Amanda replies as the elevator stops. 'Looks like we're here.'

I nod, and stand up. The room is full of smoke, and both doors are locked. As a result, that leaves only one option, and we are more than happy to take it, dropping into the android warehouse about a minute later. However, we are not alone, as monitors show that our xenomorph friends are close behind, and a group of fuckers with guns are in our presence.

'We're gonna have to evade them if we don't wanna get caught.' I whisper as I crouch down.

'Is there a vent near here?' Amanda asks, looking around.

As if on cue, I locate a wall vent. It is powered down, so Amanda has to hack into it whilst I cover our asses from both the humans and the xenomorphs. When one shoots my hand, I say a few colorful words, as it gives me a superficial wound that isn't deep at all but hurts like hell.

'Don't worry about it.' I smile as Amanda shoots a worried look at me.

'It could've been worse.' Amanda replies with a sigh.

'I've had a lot worse, and this is nothing.' I smile as we enter the vent.

My smile is cut short, when I see that the rest of the vent has a few junctions. That means xenomorphs, which means fire, which means a fair bit of death. Amanda is in front of me, with me covering from behind, and sure enough, we both hear movements coming from up above. We exit the wall vent as quietly as possible, and upon moving some of the portable terminals out of the way, we make our way over to a floor vent. It is then that Amanda sees some sheet metal, and she immediately throws it into the central area, alerting the fuckers with guns to our presence.

'We need to get out of here!' I whisper-yell as a xenomorph drops down.

Amanda nods, and we enter the floor vent. There is an area within that looks like it can be hacked into, as it's pretty obvious that this particular floor vent is one that needs to be used quite often. I don't want to risk using the other exit, so I hack into this particular one, and sure enough, it opens, revealing an area that leads us straight to where the joe is. Because it is powered down, that means that it won't have had the insta-kill command activated. However, it does require some access tuner upgrades, so as one can imagine, we have to do it right there and right then. We also have to use a terminal just to turn on the power, and without hesitation, we make our way over to the nearby door. I locate a small ladder, but before we can start climbing, two xenomorphs appear. I flame both of them simultaneously, which triggers the rest of the family. Fortunately, we are able to make it up the ladder in time, and Amanda hacks into the terminal, restoring power.

'He's now booted up.' Amanda announces as she turns to face me.

'Now all we need to do is get him to take us to the components warehouse without any of our friends coming back.' I sigh as I keep the flamethrower by my side.

Little do I know, a xenomorph has already dropped onto our level. As soon as the door opens, I pull Amanda into the nearby corner, and we both breathe a sigh of relief as it walks off. There is another one walking around below us, and from what I can see, there is one in the android warehouse. I immediately let out a few curse words, as it means that we are still in a shitload of trouble. It is then that I have an idea, and I shoot a few bursts of fire, in the hopes that they will hear. I then take hold of Amanda's hand, and we run to the ladder, climbing down right as eight angry xenomorphs hone in on the now empty spot that we filled.

'We need to stay quiet now, as they will learn our tricks, and they will try and figure us out.' I whisper as Amanda and I both make our way into the android warehouse.

Amanda nods, and we make our way over to the joe. Using sleight of body, Amanda presses the now-powered-up button, activating the joe. It walks out of its cell, shoots a few looks at us, and lets us know that we should follow it.

'I see we have company.' The joe announces in its monotonal voice.

'Keep your voice down.' Amanda whispers as we start to follow the joe.

'That weapon is not allowed.' The joe says as it turns to look at me for the second time.

I nod; the joe is right, but given the current situation, there are some measures that have to be taken. The joe leads us into the components warehouse without issues arising, although that comes to a screeching halt when it stupidly walks into an electrified pool of water. There are also a few obviously fried monitors there, and I start looking for a way for Amanda and myself to get across without killing ourselves.

Which proves to be easier said that done.

The buttons on every row are fried to the core, leaving us with no choice but to climb and jump. Amanda goes first, followed by myself, and we both jump between rows with ease. However, there is a problem, as a xenomorph has spotted us from the control room, and it is on its way down to greet us for the umpteenth time. Amanda jumps down, and grabs the compression cylinder, hiding behind a crate as she does so. I go all guns blazing, and flame the xenomorph head-on. Now, for those who want to know, shooting bursts of fire and flaming are completely different, as the xenomorphs are becoming less firephobic, requiring more fuel in order to scare them off. I smile at the fact that I'm going to be reunited with my old flamey soon, as the flamethrower I have on me is already half empty, and I know that the other xenomorphs have heard me.

But to my surprise, they don't come.

There are screeches and screams in the distance, which makes me think that there is some more human versus xenomorph drama going on. Unlucky bastards they are, as they're just going to end up getting their ribcages removed, but at least that's given me and Amanda time to make our way out of the components warehouse and over to he elevator.

And then shit hits the fan again.

Amanda puts the cylinder into the slot, and we proceed to enter the elevator. The power cuts off right as we arrive at the selected floor, resulting in us having to use the maintenance jack to pry the doors open. It's a long and difficult task due to how much shit we are carrying, but Amanda gets there in the end, and we find ourselves in an area that looks like it's been plucked straight from Monsters Inc.

'There's humans!' I whisper-yell as I pull Amanda down to the ground.

'Oh fuck!' Amanda cusses as we start moving.

We creep along the wall, silently praying to the cosmos that the humans haven't spotted us. As luck would have it, they haven't, although I do notice a xenomorph jumping into an area just below.

'Fuck!' I cuss, catching my breath.

'I'm going for it.' Amanda announces, catching me by surprise.

Before I can protest, Amanda has her gun out and drawn. She stands up, walks closer to where the humans are standing, and shoots all of them dead.

'Did you really have to do that?!' I ask as I become slightly annoyed.

'They were watching us.' Amanda confirms as she puts her gun away. 'We weren't going to get out alive.'

I climb up the ladder right as a xenomorph enters the control room. I pause, holding my breath so that it doesn't detect me, only breathing again when it pisses off into another room. Amanda follows suit, and once we are in the control room, she hacks the door on the left, whilst I check the monitors for signs of trouble.

'One good thing about these monitors is that some of them are still fucking working.' I sigh as Amanda finally opens the door.

'Come on!' Amanda whisper-yells, hoping that we don't alert our xenomorph friends.

I nod, and follow Amanda into what appears to be another control room. There is an elevator right in front of us, and as luck would have it, it is fully operational. We walk in, and upon me pressing the button, the doors close, and we make our way back to the scimed tower.

And now enter Marshall Waits from stage right.

Upon hacking into yet another door, we make our way to the transit station. It is obvious that there is a bit of an argument going on, and my smile fades when I hear that one of the voices is my bastard of a brother.

'I SENT YOU A CLEAR DIRECTIVE NOT TO LAND ON STATION!' Waits yells as we make our way down the stairs.

'I TOLD YOU WE DIDN'T HEAR YOUR MESSAGE!' Samuels yells back right as we make ourselves visible.

At that moment, the argument stops, and the real fun begins.

'Name yourselves!' Waits orders as he shoots a look at me.

I walk over, and yank the gun out of his hand.

'She's Amanda Ripley, from the Torrens that you just so conveniently managed to cut radio contact with!' I whisper-yell as I take hold of the gun.

'The fuck are you doing here?' Waits asks me, surprisingly calm.

'Trying to find out why a certain somebody is acting the way he is!' I whisper-yell as I take a step back. 'Funnily enough, I did manage to find a few documents. Turns out you're not as innocent as you want others to think you are.'

Samuels looks up at me, and hands me back my flamethrower. It is still in good shape, and I let Waits know that he better have one ready for Amanda, not letting on that he is about to experience android hell. I hand him his gun back, making him think that he's gonna get out alive, and when he tells Amanda and I that we have to bring the transit cars online due to "screwing up the trap", I give him the middle finger, and Amanda follows me as I walk over to a dimly lit and obviously hazardous corridor.

'What are we looking for?' Amanda asks me as she turns her flashlight on.

'Not sure, but if stuff like this is anything to go by, it'll likely be an elevator or something.' I reply with a sigh. 'Also, I didn't tell you earlier, but I have another brother.'

'Who?' Amanda asks out of curiosity.

'Brett, who was on the Nostromo.' I confirm as I come across said elevator. 'You see, my mom and dad were actually married once before, and that marriage produced Brett, aswell as a sister called Cynthia, who was actually the oldest. They were both adopted, and then my mom and dad divorced, married other folks, and then remarried after Waits had been born.'

'Do you have any other siblings?' Amanda inquires as I remove the maintenance jack.

'I have a younger half-sister, as nine months before you were born, your mother and my father had a one-night stand, resulting in your birth.' I mention as the elevator opens.

Without saying another word, Amanda follows me into the elevator.

'That was probably not the right time to announce that.' I mumbled as I rolled my eyes.

'Don't worry about it, as I often wondered who my actual father was.' Amanda replies with a smile.

And there is some other stuff that she doesn't know, as our father was part of a secret space organization, and they had discovered intergalactic travel, resulting in contact with humanoids such as the Neneri. He brought some of their DNA home with him, resulting in the creation of hybrid embryos that he would later implant into females during "intimate moments". He was also a friend of Waits's father, and he gave the old sod permission to do the same thing.

And the result was… well… us.

Not that I'm complaining, as being only half human has its perks, but that also means that the xenomorphs are a little more hostile towards us. We are also half Neneri instead of a quarter, as Neneri genes cancel out half of the human genes from the completely human sex cell (which in this case is the sperm cell). That means that any children we have will be half Neneri no matter what, and we don't have to worry about incest (it simply doesn't happen).

Upon reaching the control room, I notice that there is a monitor in front of us. It has been powered down, and to my left is a door behind which some drama is taking place. The monitor looks like it has been given the hole-punch treatment, and I can see a few wires that have been cut.

'How are we going to bring the trams back online?' Amanda asks me right as we get out of the elevator.

'That's one thing I'm trying to figure out.' I admit with a sigh. 'Monitor's in bad shape, so we can't use that, and there's a few bodies around, meaning that someone has tried and failed.'

It is at that moment that an idea pops into my head. Using my engineering skills, I walk over to the monitor. Using some wire clippers and spare wires found nearby, I manage to reroute the power to a monitor that still works. Amanda locates a lever, but before we can do anything, a human appears. He looks around, as if he knows that someone is around.

'CALM DOWN IN THERE YOU ANDROID FUCK!' The man yells, catching us by surprise.

Fuckin' androids, check.

Fuckin' xenomorphs, check.

Human, check.

I motion for Amanda to pull the lever. Immediately, the human notices, and I run over to another monitor, bringing the power back online.

'You shouldn't be here.' The joe says as he walks through the now-open door.

There is a xenomorph nearby. I pull out my motion tracker, and see that it's in the wall vent that will be our only way out. Once the joe has finished killing the human, it turns its attention to Amanda, walking towards her. I creep up behind it, killing it with the maintenance jack. Unfortunately, there are a few marks on Amanda's neck, as it appears that the joe started to strangle her.

'Thank you.' Amanda pants, her neck showing a few bruises. 'How's your hand?'

'Bleeding's stopped.' I pant with a smile.

I pull Amanda up, and we head into the room where the android carnage has taken place. It is almost as if Chris Walker has been through, little piggying everybody, and the only thing that is in one piece is a gas torch.

'We're gonna need that.' Amanda mentions as she shoots a look at me.

I nod, and Amanda picks it up. It is in decent shape, and we are able to use it on the vent covering. I keep cover, as stuff like this will be when we are at our most vulnerable. When she gives the signal, I help pull the thing off, and we both climb in. Fortunately, the xenomorph has fucked off, although that won't be for long, as my motion tracker is detecting multiple lifeforms. Amanda's is on the fritz again, having survived long enough to help us get through scimed. We climb up a ladder, and make our way out through a wall opening. I immediately hack the door, and we start making our way to what we know will be the Bureau.

'We heard voices as we left, guys. Watch yourselves.' Waits says through the intercom.

I'm not one to take orders from a fuckwit, but in this situation, it's the best thing to do. I pull Amanda behind a crate, and we both wait and watch as four humans walk down the stairs. By then, the transit car has already been called (I pressed the button), and once the humans are on the other side of the station, Amanda and I both creep into the transit car, and I send it an order to take us to the Solomons Habitation Tower.

'So how long have you known about me being your half-sister?' Amanda asks me as we both sit down.

'A few years, as my father told me about it just before he died. He didn't actually fuck your mother, as he created some embryos, put them in storage, fertilized them when he saw fit to do so, and then when he met your mom, he implanted one into her, and nine months later, you came.' I reply as I adjust my bag strap. 'Same happened with Waits, as both our dad and his dad were best mates, so when the divorce happened, Waits's dad got permission to use some of the unfertilized embryos, and then he died, bringing our dad back into the picture, and then I came along.'

'Did your mother ever know about me?' Amanda then asks, becoming worried.

'She did, and no, she was not pissed off about it, as she actually told dad to do it.' I confirm with a sigh. 'There was no sex involved, as what dad wanted was to create a hybrid race, and after visiting another galaxy, he came across the Neneri, who resemble humans but have higher intelligence. He saw that the human race was lacking in that particular field, so he created human-Neneri hybrids, not knowing that the Neneri had a particular gene within them that would make all subsequent offspring half Neneri no matter what.'

The news that she is half alien shocks Amanda. I then tell her that the Neneri genes cancel out any genes that would have defects, and that we can procreate with one another and have it not be known as incest, as Neneri customs state that even though Amanda is my paternal half-sister according to human laws, according to Neneri laws, she is not, as we don't share the same mother. This will also come in handy for later, as thanks to biology, beings who have Neneri heritage have a dual reproductive system. We don't have all the other fancy shit such as immortality and the ability to do everything, but we do have the ability to get each other pregnant regardless of whether or not we are biologically male or female on the human side. However, that part does not come into play in this part of our long story, as there is a station being built as of right now called Yokohama. It is located closer to the edge of the galaxy thanks to humanity's decision to "venture out" (which has, like I said, already been done), and once we are finished here, that's where we're going (albeit with a few friends, as I have already located a small team of people who have taken one of the shuttles, and I have told them to come for Amanda and myself should we make it out alive). Their names are Mike Barber, Tim Chang, Emily Pearson, and Naoko Watanabe, and they are going to help us when Yokohama goes to hell.

'Although there is one thing that I am going to have to mention.' I announce out of nowhere, catching Amanda by surprise.

'What's that?' Amanda inquires out of curiosity.

'The abuse, as my maternal grandfather was violent.' I reply with a sigh. 'He is in prison right now, having been sentenced to a whole-life tariff. He got physical quite a few times, and at one point, he put Brett in hospital for almost a year. The icing on the cake, however, was what he did to me, as I was just a baby at the time, and he did some things that one should never do to anyone, let alone a baby who was just hours old.'

I then tell Amanda the story, and the look on her face turns to anger. I then tell her that Waits has inherited that evil streak, and she agrees that Waits deserves what will happen. In fact, he was the only one that my grandfather never touched, as he was in prison for a few years, before being released, and then doing what he did to me. He was then sent back to prison, being given a whole-life tariff after what he did to me became widely known.

But fortunately, I do not let that kind of thing get to me.

If anything, it empowers me, although I do feel rage, as I know that my siblings and I were not my grandfather's only victims. Fortunately, he never knew about Amanda, as my family cut off all contact with him, and none of us will attend his funeral.

A few minutes later, we arrive at the Galleria. My motion tracker picks up activity of the xenomorph variety, and after a minute of walking, we locate the Bureau. Now, it says Marshals, but thanks to my spelling, I use Marshalls, and it follows some colorful words.

'As he said, we can't miss it.' I giggle as I point towards the door.

Amanda nods, and we walk through the door. I take note of the surroundings, and upon walking into the actual Bureau area, I locate Waits, and he tells us that Marlow is in the cell. That's a pretty interesting experience, and I watch as Marlow gives Amanda details about the Anesidora and how it all started.

Once Marlow is finished, we get an announcement from Ricardo.

'The board in the Tech Spire just lit up like a Christmas tree… they're here.' Ricardo announces out of the blue.

'Come with me, guys.' Waits says as he looks at Amanda. 'Got something here that Amanda needs.'

We nod, and follow Waits over to a small room. Behind the soon-to-be-unlocked door is a flamethrower, and we smile, knowing that we are now double-armed against the xenomorphs.

'You'll need to make your way over to the server hub.' Waits says as he shoots a look at me.

'If this goes wrong, your head's coming off.' I calmly reply as I back out through the door.

'Don't give me that bullshit, as you're not as clean as you say you are!' Waits retorts, causing Amanda to jump.

That's the truth, as I have a few issues of my own. They're not to do with the abusive grandfather situation, as I was a dick during my early twenties, and my years as a Marshall weren't the best.

'But at least I've owned up to them and changed, unlike someone else I know.' I retort back, causing Waits's face to turn red with anger.

Waits locks the door behind us. That's a bonus, although the joe won't care, as it's gonna cause a ruckus when it enters the Bureau. However, he keeps communications going, as it's gonna become obvious that we might need his help in certain areas.

And we need to use a transit car again.

In order to get to the server hub, we have to go through Lorenz SysTech Spire again. Whilst there, we accidentally set off a remote charge, causing the area to go up in flames.

'Why not ask me about Sevastopol's safety protocols?' A joe asks from the now-open room.

It is on fire, and unfortunately, I can't use the jack, so I tell Amanda to distract it whilst I make my way into the now-open room to search for something that will activate the sprinklers. After about ten seconds, I locate a lever, and upon locating a bottle of ethanol, I down the lot, take hold of the lever, and yank it down, activating the sprinklers. The ethanol immediately leaves my body, and I return to the area where Amanda is cowering.

'He nearly killed me.' Amanda cried as I walked over.

'But he didn't, which is a bonus.' I replied, crouching down. 'Must've been the sprinklers, as I'm sure these fuckers have more faults than originally thought.'

Little do we know, some of our xenomorph friends have heard the chaos, and two of them have dropped down. The door that used to be behind the scanners is no more, having been blown out by the remote charge, and I flame the xenomorph that is there, before turning to flame the other, and then forcing Amanda into an upright position, after which we both run like maniacs into the SysTech lobby.

'Did something just explode back there?' One of the males asks us out of worry.

'That's the least of your problems, as the creatures are here.' Amanda replies as she pants.

And with that, the humans make their way out of the lobby. However, I have a nagging feeling that someone is still here, so with Amanda in tow, I make my way up the left staircase, and head over to the window area. Sure enough, there is a woman hiding there, and Amanda tells her to go to the Bureau. We then make our way over to where the disable security lockdown part happened, and we make our way down the stairs.

'There's a terminal in the control room up ahead.' Waits says as we make our way into said control room.

I make my way over to the terminal, and kick it online. I immediately start looking for the utility file, and immediately, I sense a problem, as there is no file there. After saying a few colorful words, I bring up the command prompt, and create a series of codes that will enable the door to open. Unfortunately, like last time, it fails, so we have to look for another way into the server hub.

And it's then that I remember something.

Because there are no other open routes to the server hub, I decide to look around for something that can be used to blow the door off. As luck would have it, someone has dropped a pipe bomb, so I pick it up, and once Amanda and I are a safe distance away, I throw the pipe bomb, completely annihilating the door.

And piss off the joe behind it.

'Come with me please.' The joe says as it starts walking over towards us.

It is a hazmat joe, and we don't want to risk getting into an altercation with it, so Amanda and I run to a safe spot, and we throw bits of shrapnel its way. The bits of shrapnel include ripped up sheets of metal, human bone, and anything else that we can find whilst making our way over to the generators on the stairwell. Fortunately, it takes the bait, but not for long, as it realizes that something is still amiss. I turn off the generator, and immediately run to the next generator, flaming the xenomorphs in the process as they make their entrance. We then head into a room near the server hub, where there is a terminal and a desk. I bypass the security program, and initiate the last part of the lockdown as per Ricardo's orders.

'Now go through to the server farm, guys.' Ricardo says right as a xenomorph drops down.

I nod, and upon flaming the fucker, I lead Amanda through the door that's to the left of the desk… and straight into yet another hazmat joe. We decide that killing it isn't worth our time, as we see a few overhead junctions.

'Great!' I sigh loudly, alerting the joe.

Amanda nudges me, and we run into the small corridor. A handful of xenomorphs drop down, and I am forced to flame all of them, which only pisses off the hazmat joe even more. Ultimately, I end up killing it, although there is another hazmat joe in the actual server farm, just waiting to meet us.

And the server farm is fucked.

The servers are all over the fucking place, leaving us completely exposed. Fortunately, there's a dead body with a bag full of pipe bombs waiting for us, so Amanda picks them up, knowing that they're gonna come in handy. There's also a few molotovs, aswell as some emp mines, and even some medikits, aswell as a few blueprints for upgrades.

'What's the latest up there in the Bureau?' I ask Waits through intercom.

'Everything's holding up.' Waits replies, not knowing what's going to happen to him. 'No external comms, though, as the array's been shut off. If you see anybody heading down that way, tell them that you are Gene Autry and Patsy Montana.'

'Affirmative.' I vow as Amanda hands me a pipe bomb.

And with that, Waits tunes out. I turn to Amanda, and we creep down the stairwell.

'You always know a working joe.' The joe says from the other server farm area.

Sadly, the most desired route is blocked off. Fortunately, I have good aim, so I throw the pipe bomb, unblocking said route. This alerts our friends, and Amanda places some molotovs as proximity devices, so that our asses are covered should they come from behind.

And they do.

Their shrieks alert the joe, who walks over to us. We run for it, making our way up the stairwell so that we can hack the door. We successfully manage to do that, but in doing so, we open all server farm doors, leaving us even more exposed.

And we have a new problem to deal with.

The server farm entrance has temporarily shorted, leaving us alone with the joe and the xenomorphs. Fortunately, that's not for long, as Ricardo is able to fix the problem, letting us through. Unfortunately, that also means that the lockdown has been reversed, and we run as fast as we can over to the stairwell, watching our backs in the event that our pals are following us.

I lead Amanda up to the top level, and we make our way back into the lobby. It's in use again, and I locate a piece of shrapnel. We have to go to Gemini Exoplanet Solutions, as Waits "has a plan", and upon looking, I see a few humans. I throw the piece of shrapnel onto the ground level, before locating a good hiding spot. Amanda follows, and we manage to evade all the drama, gunshots, and face-feasts.

'The next part is gonna be tricky.' I warn Amanda as we make our way to the elevator.

'What do you mean?' Amanda inquires, confused.

'Labs always have joes activated, and we'll be screwed for cover because of the open layout.' I whisper as I close the elevator door. 'There will also be a lot of junctions, aswell as a fair few security cameras. That's not including the external lab units, which come equipped with airlocks and EVA suits. Take a note of them when we get to that part, as they might come in handy.'

Amanda nods, and upon entering Gemini, she gets out of the elevator first, making sure that there are no enemies around. I then follow, and upon locating a door, I make my way over to it. It opens, and I see a human female sitting there. She's obviously scared, and judging by how she is, I can see that she's got one of them bastards inside her.

'Are you okay, miss?' I ask as I walk over.

'I wish.' The female replies as she looks up at me. 'Who are you?'

Amanda walks up behind me.

'You don't need to know.' Amanda replies on my behalf. 'Why aren't you in a safe zone?'

'I've got one inside me.' The female replies with a sigh. 'It's too late.'

I immediately know where this is going, and I pull out my gun. The female nods, and I take aim, shooting her once in the back of the head, killing her out of mercy.

'You just shot her!' Amanda cries as she shoots a look at me.

'She was going to die anyway.' I reply with a sigh as I put my gun back where it was. 'I just made it quick and painless. It's also what I expect you to do to me if I am gravely injured.'

Amanda looks down at the floor.

'You know it would be the right thing to do.' I whisper-sigh as I place my free hand on Amanda's left shoulder.

Amanda lets out a sigh, and we continue on our way. There's no time for tears, as our friends have heard the gunshot, and they are on their way. I lead Amanda up the stairwell, and we make our way into a wide corridor that leads to the onshore lab area. There are screens everywhere, and as soon as we walk around the corner, we are spotted by a joe. It's one of the standard ones (fortunately), but it is out and about, and it is ready to kill us. I motion for Amanda to go to the terminal (it needs to be hacked into), and I send the joe to android hell.

'There are a couple of breaker switches. Bring them back online, and then continue.' Waits says over intercom.

'Copy that.' I reply back.

Before anything else could be said, the joe comes back to life, and throws me onto the ground. Amanda sees this, and rushes over, grabbing the maintenance jack and sending the joe back to said android hell. I have a few marks on my neck, aswell as a sore head from where I hit the ground, and it takes me a few seconds to regain my vision.

'Do you need a medikit?' Amanda asks me out of worry.

I try to say no, although it's obvious that I do. Amanda grabs one, and rams it into my neck. My hand is still a little sore, although it is healing nicely, and within seconds, I am back on my feet. We decide to make our way to the nearest breaker switch first, which I know from looking at lab maps on other stations is always on the same level as the onshore lab area. I lead Amanda back into the wide corridor, and we are immediately faced with all eight xenomorphs. Amanda throws a human bone that she's found down the corridor, and as soon as all the xenomorphs are there, she whips out a pipe bomb, and throws it at them, scaring them all off.

'How many have we got left?' I ask as I make my way over to the power station.

'About six.' Amanda quietly replies.

'Save them and use the flamethrower.' I suggest as I turn off the security camera.

I absolutely fucking hate those things with a passion, and upon locating the first breaker switch. I pull it. I will also mention that power units and power stations are pretty similar, although the units are a little easier, and can be removed from the wall, whereas a power station is a permanent fixture. Amanda keeps watch outside, and when I rejoin her, we make our way back into the lab, and crawl into a wall vent.

And it almost caves in on us.

I pull Amanda over to the side as one of the pipes breaks loose. We make our way to the other end, flamethrowers out and ready, and we climb out, making our way to a large room where a joe stands waiting to be activated and another plays dead.

'There's a ladder over there. Maybe we should use it.' I say to Amanda as we both look around.

Amanda notices said ladder, and we both make our way over. The terminals are powered down, and there's nothing that even remotely looks like a breaker switch. I know that what's coming up next will determine whether or not we continue with the mission at hand, although I do not estimate just how much it is going to fuck us over. Fortunately, there's a power unit nearby, which I know will come in handy, so I remove it from the wall bracket, and place it in my bag. My motion tracker then beeps, signalling that we have company, and I motion for Amanda to follow me up the ladder. She does so without hesitation, and we make our way to the upper breaker room, where she does the honors whilst I cover.

'How are you holding up back there?' Amanda asks me as I stand in the doorway.

'I'm holding up good.' I reply happily. 'Unfortunately, our friends seem to have caught up, so when they drop down, I'm gonna flame them bad, give them something to really screech over.'

Second power breaker officially done.

Amanda makes her way over to me, and we make our way back over to where the ladder is. I can hear movement on the lower level, so I pick up a box, and throw it as hard as I can. Cue a bit of hissing, followed by a bit of running, and you get eight xenomorphs who are suddenly interested in the new sound that's just been made. We then make our way down the ladder, as quiet as possible so as not to let them know that we are there.

Mission successful.

I plant my feet back on terra firma, and lead Amanda over to the central unit. I hack into the terminal, bypassing the service maintenance part so that the central breaker switches can be powered up. It is not the safest option, but it's the only option if we are to escape with our lives. We then pull both breaker switches, before heading through to project KG348.

'If you even think about using us as bait, Waits, there'll be hell to pay.' I mumble as we enter the stairwell.

Amanda hears me, and takes hold of my hand. She is as worried as I am, and we are relieved when we make it to the elevator without any problems.

'Who are you?' A man in a black suit asks us as we sit down.

'Gene Autry and Patsy Montana.' I reply in a quiet tone. 'You on your way to fix the array?'

'We are.' The man replies with a sigh.

'Any news about the shuttle bound for Yokohama Station?' Amanda asks out of curiosity.

'They'll be there in about 2 weeks.' The man confirms as he looks at his watch. 'That's all I know.'

At that moment, I get a message from Samuels. He says that it is confidential, and that nobody else but me should hear it. I turn down the volume, and it is then that Samuels tells me that he has reached his destination, and that he will need to use the reformat chamber. For those who don't know what a reformat chamber is, it's basically an MRI scanner that has been reconfigured in order to allow androids to access it without having their wires go bye-bye. It is a pretty useful piece of equipment, although if it detects an intruder, it will blow the area to kingdome come. He then turns off on his end, and we exit the elevator.

'Who were you talking to?' Amanda asks me as she looks at her motion tracker.

'I was talking to Waits.' I lied as I got my own motion tracker out. 'Also gonna need the power unit, as the door up ahead is locked.'

Amanda nods, and I get out the power unit. I attach it onto the wall, and open the door. It turns out to be a one-time-use unit, as it immediately blows a fuse. Fortunately, nobody's injured, although it does cause the air to the turn blue. The duo that we shared the elevator ride with have gone to fix the array, leaving us alone.

'I have a bad feeling about this.' Amanda whispers as we walk into the control room.

'Me too.' I reply as I get out my flamethrower. 'There's another door up ahead. We need to use the torch to open it. You okay with doing that?'

'I'll have to be.' Amanda sighs, obviously afraid.

Unfortunately, we are out of luck, as the torch has crapped itself. However, I do have a plan B, and it involves yet another pipe bomb. Amanda hands one to me, and I modify it so that it takes only the door off. I then walk out of the control room, and over to the door, where I attach the pipe bomb right over the covering. I then make my way back over to the control room, and upon entering a few lines of code, I send a message to the sensor, and the pipe bomb detonates, blowing the door out.

And alerting company.

Amanda and I leave the control room, and back into the now-open corridor. We both have our flamethrowers out, and when "company" turns up, we flame all of them, forcing them to back off into the vents. There are no hiding spaces here, so if we use up all of our fuel, we're royally fucked.

'There's a ladder up ahead.' Amanda announces as company returns.

'You climb down first.' I order as I flame the xenomorph.

Amanda does as ordered, and climbs down the ladder. I immediately follow, my bag still holding up despite the numerous hours of being whacked around and whatnot and shit. We then make our way down the small corridor, and we finally enter the lab.

'We need the whole facility powered up, guys.' Waits says via intercom.

'I think we know what to do.' I vow as the door closes behind us.

I immediately make my way down the starboard corridor. We are lit up like a Christmas tree, but that's a small price to pay given the fact that this is going to be the toughest part. Also, remember when I said that automated surgery tables will come in handy? Well that part is coming ever closer, although fortunately, it's not in this part.

But we do have a few problems here.

I locate the control room, and pull the lever that brings the entire lab back online. Waits lets me know that the console is in the central lab, and I tell Amanda to go through and look for it. All the while, we have eight xenomorphs in the area, and as luck would have it, two of them have dropped down, and are walking around as if they own the place. Amanda hides right as one of them enters the room, and I carefully make my way around, letting her know that she needs to follow my every move.

'One false move here, and we're gonna be dead.' I warn Amanda as the second xenomorph enters the room.

Amanda nods, and we creep out into the corridor, careful so as to not get seen. I locate the central lab with ease, and we creep over.

Cue hissing.

I flame the fucker, giving Amanda enough time to place some proximity devices. We're going to really need them here, as Amanda has to hack into the central lab console, and without them, we're both gonna be pretty fucking vulnerable. I take her flamethrower, refueling it for her so that she doesn't have to worry about anything, and she hacks into the console, bringing the lab back online.

'Now we can leave.' I smile as I hand the flamethrower back.

And with that, we make our way back to the airlock.

'I'm sorry, guys.' Waits announces, catching us by surprise.

Just as we manage to approach the airlock, Waits closes it, and jettisons the lab, sending us flying into space. Seconds later, the artificial gravity system kicks in, and we fall to the floor with a thud, Amanda crashing onto me.

'Jesus fucking Christ!' I whisper-rage as Amanda gets up off of me.

Amanda helps me stand up, and we both walk around.

'Waits, you son of a bitch!' Amanda whisper-rages as we regain our focus.

'I fuckin' knew he would do this.' I moan as I clutch my flamethrower.

Fuckin' and fucking are both in my vocabulary, and I use both of them. However, in this scenario, they are the most lenient words I can use, and we are in even more trouble when all of the xenomorphs drop down.

'Vent… now!' I order as a xenomorph runs over.

Amanda jumps into the floor vent. Unfortunately, she isn't safe there, as she's been seen, and one of the xenomorphs is in there with her. She flames it, causing it to fuck the ever loving mother of fucking fuck off, which in turn alerts the other xenomorphs, who end up being met with fire. I then pull her out, and we run over to the EVA airlock, where I press the button.

'Please don't fuck up!' I moan, hoping that nothing bad will happen.

Unfortunately, my worst fears are realised, when the EVA airlock door fails to open. I run back into the central lab, leaving Amanda to fend off the xenomorphs, and I hack into the secondary console. It blue-screens, and I immediately kick it, causing it to explode.

Time for Plan C.

I call for Amanda, and we make our way into the first room. There is a vent there that's been used, but it's our only option, so I pile up as many crates as possible, and fling myself in. I then pull Amanda up, and we navigate our way through the vent network, eventually dropping down into the EVA airlock area.

And then the fucking door opens.

Amanda and I both put on EVA suits, right as the outer airlock door opens. We are forced out into the vacuum of space, and it isn't long before we manage to find an airlock to pull ourselves back into Sevastopol.

And we're both pissed.

We take off our EVA suits, and examine our weapons which are surprisingly still intact. The xenomorphs are somewhat gone, although I can hear a shriek in the distance which says that there might be more on the station. We then exit the airlock, and cue Waits being a smug jackass.

'Hello?' Amanda pants, pissed off. 'Can anybody hear me?'

'Ripley? Carter? Is that you?' Waits asks, pretending to be surprised.

'YES, WAITS! US! YOU SON OF A BITCH! YOU LOCKED US IN! YOU THROUGH THAT LAB INTO SPACE AND...' I start, both pissed off and sore.

'I HAD NO CHOICE! NO CHOICE AT ALL! Y0U SAW THOSE THINGS! YOU SAW WHAT THEY COULD DO! I HAD TO GET THEM OFF OF THE STATION! BY ANY MEANS NECESSARY' Waits yells back.

'YEAH! USE US AS BAIT! LEAVE US TO DIE!' Amanda rages as we cut through the door.

'AND IT GODDAMN WORKED, RIPLEY! IT GODDAMN WORKED! I GOT THOSE THINGS! JETTISONED THEM INTO THE GAS GIANT! THE STATION'S SAFE!' Waits yells back, sounding all pathetic.

'THERE'S THAT! AND THERE'S THE FACT THAT YOU'RE A HEARTLESS BASTARD! WE'RE HEADING BACK TO THE BUREAU! WE CAN DISCUSS YOUR METHODS THERE! RIPLEY AND CARTER OUT!' Amanda rages as the door opens.

We make our way through, and find ourselves back in the spaceflight terminal. Last time we were here, we met Axel, although more than a few hours have passed, and a fair bit of activity has happened since then.

'Grab the shotgun.' I say to Amanda whilst pointing at the dead body.

Amanda nods, and grabs the shotgun. It's gonna come in handy, as we've now switched from fighting aliens to fighting pissed-off androids who will come looking for a kill due to being told to abandon their posts.

And this is where the automated surgery tables come in handy.

The joes have had an emergency software upgrade due to the lab being jettisoned, and are now twice as fast. I lead Amanda through the large door, and my theory is put to the test when we are ambushed by four of the fuckers. I send my two to meet their maker, although Amanda is not so lucky, as she is strangled to within an inch of her life. I ambush both joes, although by this point, it looks as if she's already dead.

But she's not.

I call Ricardo, and let him know that Amanda is down. He tells me where the nearest automated surgery table is, and I pick Amanda up, taking her there as fast as possible. It looks like her neck has been broken, and upon reaching the surgical unit, I lay her on the table, and get straight to work, punching in the codes needed.

'Wwwwwwhat happened?' Amanda asks as she stirs.

'Hold still.' I order as the table gets to work.

'I can't move.' Amanda moans, confirming that her spine is indeed fucked.

I watch as the arms numb Amanda's neck. Seconds later, an incision is made, and the extensions get to work, repairing her spine. It's an anterior issue, and Amanda is awake the entire time. Slowly but surely, she regains all of her senses, and when she moves her hand, she lets out a smile. The arm then patches everything back up, and using yet another laser, it closes the incision, making it look like nothing had ever happened.

'You really got lucky there.' I smile as the arm moves back into its original position.

'What happened?' Amanda inquires, curious.

'Androids decided to have a bit of fun.' I reply with a sigh.

Amanda forces herself into a sitting position.

'At least I had you there to save me.' Amanda smiles as she looks around. 'God, my neck feels fucking stiff.'

'It will do for a few more minutes.' I reply right as my motion tracker beeps. 'But we can't stay here, as something is coming towards us, and we don't want to end up dead.'

Amanda nods, and upon forcing herself into a standing position, she takes hold of her bag, and we make our way out of the surgical unit, which is like a theater but for cases that can't wait. They are also fitted into the shuttles, which will be where my turn happens.

And there'll be other shit happening along the way.

We make it back up to the Bureau, although the door is locked. Fortunately, there is a vent that we can use, but it's gonna be a while before we can get there.

'Ricardo? You there?' I ask via intercom.

Seconds later, Ricardo picks up.

'I am… sorry.' Ricardo replies with a sigh.

'Door is locked.' I mention as I start to look around.

'You'll have to find another way in.' Ricardo replies as I locate another corridor. 'Sorry for fucking up earlier, by the way.'

'Not your fault.' Amanda replies upon tuning in.

'You got us out in the end.' I chipped in happily.

'Unlike Waits.' Amanda added as I nodded.

'He's always been a ruthless son of a bitch.' Ricardo replies as I give yet another nod.

At that moment, someone starts shooting. I turn off, and see that Amanda and I are being shot at through the Galleria shutters.

'Fuck you, asshole!' I retort as I pull out my gun.

My gun is safe; the catch is on, but I still aim it, giving the guy the impression that I'm about to blow his brains out. He runs off, and I press a few buttons on Horace. He takes a few seconds to wake up, and once he is fully awake, he starts moving through the corridor and over to a small hatch.

'Looks like we've found ourselves a new route.' I smile happily as Amanda and I follow Horace.

'Can you fit through that?' Amanda asks out of curiosity.

'Don't see why not. Besides, it's not that much smaller than the wall vents.' I reply in a somewhat happy tone.

And with that, I crouch down. After maneuvering my bag so that it poses no problems, I make my way through the hatch. Amanda follows, and we smile upon seeing an open door.

But our smiles are cut short.

We walk through the door, and enter a maintenance corridor.

'Ripley? Carter? You there?' Ricardo asks us through intercom, catching us by surprise.

'We only talked to you about 5 minutes ago.' I worriedly reply. 'What's the problem?'

'The joes have left their posts.' Ricardo replies, confirming my suspicions. 'Just saw some in the public area. This is abnormal.'

'Great!' Amanda sighs loudly.

'What about the xenomorphs?' I ask out of curiosity.

'Nothing on that front, although Waits is sending a few guys down to the reactor, as reports are coming back inconclusive.' Ricardo admits as I roll my eyes.

'If it turns out that there are more xenomorphs here, I'll make sure his autopsy report comes back inconclusive.' I vow as I resume walking.

The maintenance corridor is full of fucked screens. In fact, the screens there are so fucked, that trying to find one that can even blue-screen is a miracle. Amanda follows behind, and we find a stairwell which we walk up, leading to… another maintenance corridor.

'You shouldn't be here.' A joe says, catching us by surprise.

I look behind, and see a joe walking up the stairs. It's a little late to the party, which leads me to think that its wires are faulty. Sure enough, that's the case, and with one single hit to the back of the neck, I send the fucker straight to hell.

'Didn't see that coming.' Amanda says, surprised.

'He just had faulty wiring.' I reply as I wipe down the maintenance jack. 'Now to continue with our mission.'

Amanda nods, and we enter the upper maintenance corridor. There are a few dead bodies, aswell as a few doors that are locked. I unlock them, and we enter what appears to be a bar area.

'Fancy a drink?' I ask jokingly as I take a look around.

'I'll take a pint of lager, please.' Amanda replies, getting the joke.

I pretend-nod, and pick up some of the full bottles. They will come in handy later on, as the real insane part of this is yet to happen. I put them into my bag, and Amanda listens to the audiolog. There is a vent in the room that we have entered from, and from what I can tell, we need to use that in order to get into the food court part of the Galleria.

'Follow me.' Amanda says as I zip up my bag.

'Coming.' I reply happily.

'And that offer is still on.' Amanda mentions with a smile.

'Copy that.' I confirm as I start walking.

Amanda leads me over to the floor vent, and we both climb in.

'Do you copy, Waits?' I ask through the intercom as we start crawling.

'Copy.' Waits replies, somewhat surprised.

'What's wrong with the androids?' I ask, worried.

'I don't know.' Waits replies, somewhat annoyed.

'What about the change in alert status?' I then ask, hoping for an answer.

'DAMN IT! I DON'T KNOW!' Waits yells, now full-on annoyed. 'I'M TRYING TO CONTACT SAMUELS! MAYBE HE WILL KNOW WHAT THE HELL APOLLO IS PLAYING AT!'

I turn off on my side, and follow Amanda through the vent. The hazard containment alert level has been raised to omega, which is second only to alpha. There are footsteps up above us, although from what we can hear, they are human, and they are running from certain death.

'I can't wait for this shit to be over.' I whisper as Amanda opens the floor vent hatch.

'Me neither.' Amanda replies as she climbs out. 'We got company here. Give me your hand.'

I give Amanda my hand, and with her help, I jump out of the floor vent.

'Thanks for that.' I sigh happily.

'It's the least I can do after you revived me.' Amanda smiles as she gets out her motion tracker. 'Almost forgot that this thing is fucked.'

'It's gonna be the least of our worries when we get to the core, as I have a feeling that we'll be going down there.' I mention with a sigh.

Before Amanda can reply, something crashes against the locked door. We have to go through there, and I have a feeling that we are about to go up shit creek only to lose the paddle. All the while, we've also been collecting ID tags, so we know who all the crew members used to be, and that those who are dead have died through gunshot, being attacked by a joe, or impregnation, and that those who died through other means did so because of their own stupidity.

Like the guy who impaled himself on a spike.

That was whilst Amanda and I were in the crisis stabilization area, and it was in the day room. I think about it for a second, and let out a little giggle, before coming back to my senses. Unfortunately, the generator to open the door is broken, so I have to look for another way to do the job.

'Anything yet?' Amanda asks me as I remove the generator panel.

'Gonna have to look at the wires in this thing.' I admit with a sigh. 'You holding up back there? If you can, check that the terminal works, as we might have to use that somehow.'

'I just did.' Amanda admits as she walks over.

I let out a string of curse words. Seconds later, the panel is off, and I'm able to see what's wrong.

'GODDAMN MOTHER OF FUCKING FUCK!' I scream out loud, causing Amanda to jump.

'Everything alright?' Amanda asks, surprised.

'Circuits are fried!' I whisper-yell, pissed off.

Amanda looks around, and sees an expertly-hidden second generator. I internally shout at myself for being such a stupid idiot, and I watch as she presses the button on it, opening the door.

'Thank fucking God for that!' I not-so-quietly sigh.

Amanda shoots a look at me, and we both make our way through the now-open door. We are immediately thrown into the middle of it all, although due to the fairly obvious, we can only run, as there are androids and humans.

And this is where my guns come in handy.

Some of the humans are security guards. They can be pretty violent at times, and I shoot a few with my shotgun, killing them instantly.

'We need to go before the androids catch up.' I whisper as we make our way down to the lower level.

'I'm gonna contact Waits.' Amanda announces, following my lead.

I nod, and Amanda does exactly that, letting Waits know about the little android situation and how all the joes have abandoned their posts. He tells us to stand by, which means one thing.

Some good times, they are a-comin'!

I let out a little smile, and lead Amanda into another corridor. There are some more shrieks in the distance, although I can't tell whether they are alien in nature or not.

'Follow me.' I order as Amanda stays behind me.

Amanda nods, and we enter another part of the food court. There is a door up ahead that leads to the Bureau, and Amanda follows my lead as we make our way over.

'Waits, do you copy?' I ask through intercom.

No sound for a second.

'We've got some security shutters in the way.' Amanda chips in, worried.

'Waits?' I ask again.

And then it happens.

'YOU BASTARDS! YOU MURDERING BASTARDS! LEAVE THEM ALONE! STAND DOWN!' Waits shouts on the other end.

'You're becoming hysterical.' The joe says as it gets to work.

Helpful android, check.

Dead fuckwit of a brother, check.

Me finally being free, check.

But now there's a problem, as we have to rely on Ricardo for help from now on. I patch through to him, letting him know that he is now in charge of the station.

'You need to make your way back as soon as possible.' Ricardo says, somewhat shaken.

'Waits aside, what's the death report like?' I ask, silently hopeful.

'It's bad.' Ricardo replies with a sad tone in his voice.

'Thanks for letting me know.' I announce as I turn off. 'Carter out.'

Amanda shoots a look at me.

'Aren't you sad that Waits is now gone?' Amanda asks me, hoping for a sane answer.

'Not in the slightest.' I reply happily.

'Me neither.' Amanda admits as we focus on the task at hand. 'Anything on your tracker?'

'Got a few tracks, although I can't tell whether they are human or not.' I admit as I take another look at my motion tracker.

We make our way back through the food court. Our destination is right above us, and along the way, we come across some more joes. I ambush them, right in time for us to get shot at by some more security guards.

'This shot is for you, asshole!' I loudly say as I shoot the first security guard dead.

Seconds later, the second one appears. I shoot him dead, and blow a hole in the floor in the process due to the fact that the fucker has a pacemaker fitted and I end up shooting right into it. However, by this point, I don't care, as even though my brother is now dead, there is an entire station full of people just waiting to have my ass for breakfast.

And Amanda is now my main priority.

I will kill anything and anyone that harms her. I don't care how, as I will make all who harm her suffer. I then back into the shutter, which opens up to reveal what appears to be a sleeping area. Amanda follows me, and we make our way into… another maintenance corridor.

And there's a joe following us.

Or, to be more precise, quite a few, and we run down the corridor, and into a wall vent that is on the verge of caving in.


	3. Chapter 3

'I think this is the one.' I announce as I come across a hatch.  
'If you say so.' Amanda replies as she covers for me.

I open the hatch, and climb out.

'This is most definitely the Bureau.' I announce as Amanda climbs out.

Amanda nods, and takes a look around. Sure enough, it is the Bureau, and upon walking through to the waiting room area, I see that Ricardo is the only one still alive.

'They're all dead.' Ricardo whispers, shaking violently.  
'The androids slaughtered them.' Amanda sighs as she takes a look around.

Yep, androids, as the joe I reprogrammed apparently wasn't alone.

'Why the fuck?' Ricardo asks, confused and worried.  
'No clue, although Samuels might know. We're gonna go and find him. Look after us, man.' I say as I walk over to the door.

Ricardo hesitates.

'You can do this, Ricardo.' I sigh with a smile. 'You're a good man. Once we're out, lock the doors, and let nobody in. If you do get intruders, kill them on site.'

Ricardo nods, and opens the door. Amanda follows me, as we make our way back through the Galleria. I am not phased by seeing Waits's dead body, and having given it the middle finger, I can safely say that all ties have been cut.

'Erm… Paul?!' Amanda says as she tugs at my sleeve.

I look to my left, and see a hazmat joe walking over to me. I run as fast as I can, giving Amanda the opportunity to start jacking the back of its head. I find another maintenance jack that has been discarded, and I pick it up, before running back to the joe, and completely annihilating it.

'Where did you find that?' Amanda asks me out of curiosity as we resume walking.  
'Other end of the corridor.' I reply happily. 'Will need to modify it, though, as we'll likely see more of those bastards, and you don't want to face a group of them without being adequately armed.'

Amanda nods, and we continue on our way. It's a little less nightmarish now that the xenomorphs seem to be out of the way, but that's only a "seem to be" because I can still hear shrieks in the distance. Now, I'm no know-it-all, but in certain situations, I am one's best friend. I lead Amanda into the transit station which seems to be a little worse for wear, and immediately, we are confronted by another hazmat joe.

Oh, and the transit cars are all deactivated.

Upon killing the joe, I make my way over to a power unit, and bring as many units as possible back online. Unfortunately, the transit cars are all dead, but as luck would have it, there's an emergency shortcut nearby. Amanda follows me as I make my way over to it, and with her help, I crowbar the non-functional door out. We then make our way through, and after almost fifty minutes of walking, we enter the scimed tower, through the very door that we blew up earlier on. It is also a little worse for wear, as more of the systems have gone down.

'Looks like there's been a party in here.' I sigh as I look around.

Amanda nods, and takes a look around. Sure enough, there are a few more dead bodies, and from what I can see, they have been killed by the xenomorphs. Their faces are almost completely gone, and there are a few acid-induced craters.

'More than a party, I should think.' Amanda sighs as we make our way back up the stairwell. 'Where are we going?'  
'Back the way we came when we got out of the hospital area.' I reply with a smile. 'However, there will be a service vent, as the android repair area is one of the most secure spots on any station.'

I then lead Amanda into the control room area. The control room no-longer exists due to being blown to kingdom come after we left. I climb through the debris, and pick up a few useful items that will be useful when we're dealing with sixteen xenomorphs.

'So what now?' Amanda asks me as we make our way into the elevator.  
'We make our way up, and then we use the service vent.' I reply with a sigh. 'Like I said, the android repair area is secure as fuck. Got security cameras there, and they are not like the ones we've already seen.'

That's the truth, as the security cameras are incredibly loud. No, I don't just mean a little loud, as they emit sounds only found in torture devices that use sound in order to do their job.

And they do it efficiently.

'There should be a code on the terminal.' Ricardo says as he tries to remain calm.  
'Roger that.' I reply as Amanda walks over to said terminal.

I manage to get the torch working again, and I cut through the panel that will give us access to the unit. Once I am done, I shoot a look at Amanda, who is on alert after hearing voices. She gives me the code, and I immediately punch it in, opening the door. She then creeps over to me, and we make our way into the room, and into the vent.

'I don't think we were alone just there.' Amanda sighs as I lead.  
'Could tell that.' I reply as I try to keep myself focused. 'Sounded human, although right now, it's just you I care about.'  
'And getting away from here in one piece.' Amanda sighs with a smile.

At that moment, I snag my hand. It is not a deep wound, although it does hurt like hell, and it is bleeding a little. Doesn't bother me; I've had worse things, although the incident later on with surpass that. The screens are also useless, and upon exiting the vent, I see that we are on what appears to be the top of an elevator.

'Looks like we're in a game of snakes and ladders.' I smile as I bandage my hand.

Amanda climbs out of the vent, and makes her way over to the ladder. I follow her, and we walk across. There is a vertical ladder there, and as you can predict, we both make our way up, looking like complete and utter idiots in the process but at the same time not giving a fuck because of the obvious reason.

And we reach the second elevator.

'This one looks secure.' I say sarcastically as I locate another ladder.  
'What makes you say that?' Amanda inquires, not picking up my tone.

I let out a long sigh.

'Was being sarcastic, as this elevator looks like it's about to descend into hell.' I reply as I make my way over.

Amanda proceeds to reply, but is cut off when the elevator suddenly falls. I grab her hand, holding onto yet another elevator for my own dear life, and using as much strength as I can muster, I salmon-ladder both of us into the elavator, before jumping through the ceiling junction which leads to another vent. I then pull Amanda up, and we make our way through said vent, arriving in the infamous android repair area.

'You there yet?' Ricardo asks through intercom as I take a look around.  
'We are, Ric.' I reply as Amanda follows suit. 'Looks like a synthetic morgue. You ever seen one before?'  
'I did a small stint in one a year ago.' Ricardo admits with a sigh. 'Creeped me the fuck out. You think there'll be any live ones there?'

As if on cue, a joe appears. It is very obviously damaged, and instead of attacking us, it walks over to a wall, and starts making some rather adult hand movements. I put it out of its misery, but in doing so, I find that it has been turned into a bomb. Immediately upon realising this, I grab Amanda's hand, and we run as fast as we can out of the area, with only seconds to spare as it blasts the area to kingdom come.

And then I hear hisses.

'Ohhhhhh shiiiiiiiiit!' I whisper-yell as I run over to a generator.  
'What?' Amanda inquires, visibly surprised.  
'There are more xenomorphs on the station.' I sigh as I power up the generator. 'Fortunately, they're quite far away, although something tells me we'll be heading right towards them. There's another generator next-door. Can you please power it up?'

Amanda nods, and obeys my order. Seconds later, I hear a scream, and I rush through, only to find her cornered by a hazmat joe. I unleash hell on him, and when another stirs, I repeat the process, until they are all dead.

And that's when I notice that the door in the central area is fried.

'Door's blown.' Amanda sighs as she notices what I'm looking at.  
'Not to worry, though, as there are two more generators.' I mention as I point at both of them.

Seconds later, both generators are powered up, and the door finally opens. We both walk through, only for the door ahead to close on us. There is a vent, though, so we do not have to worry, although I know that something bad is about to happen.

And sure enough, it does.

We watch as Samuels consults with a joe about accessing Apollo. It appears to be going as predicted, until the moment the joe grabs Samuels by the arm. He then throws it into the corner, and pummels it until it is dead, as if he is made of fuckin' kryptonite. I am neither shocked nor surprised, as it's a known fact that WY androids are strong fuckers. I have also seen various Samuels androids before, although they have different personalities as is required when building each android. As a result, when they are together, things can get more than a little complicated.

We leave the vent, and sure enough, we have entered the showroom. Glass panels are everywhere, and the door at the far end is red. Fortunately, there is a terminal there, and it looks like it is still usable.

Unfortunately, there are also eight hazmat joes.

'There should be a button on one of the pillars. Go and look for it.' I say to Amanda as I walk over to the terminal.  
'What's on the terminal?' Amanda asks out of curiosity.  
'Just find the button.' I order as I kick the terminal into action.

Amanda nods with a sigh, and locates the button. I browse through the files on the terminal, sighing upon seeing that the only thing they have on the fucking thing is a document about the showcase that will never happen.

'Door's open.' Amanda announces as she walks over.

I look up, and sure enough, the door is open. I know that this is my time to shine, and with Amanda in tow, I bolt through the door.

'You need an appointment!' One of the joes says as it wakes up.

I let out a silent "oh shit", and lead Amanda into another room. There is sweet fuck-all for us to pick up, and the door in the corner needs a keycard, which means that we're going to have to unleash android chaos just to find it. To top it off, the power station is fried, so we can't initiate a firewall (ba dum tss), which means that we are royally fucked if we don't act fast.

And we have to act fast.

The joes break through the door, and make their way over to us. We have our jacks in hand, ready to attack, and the second they appear, we go all-out, bashing them up one side and down the other with blows that will more than hurt in the morning if served to a human.

Fortunately, we win.

But not without a few injuries, as I've sustained a broken nose, and Amanda has some nasty bruises from accidentally whacking herself. She procures the keycard, and I use a medikit on myself so that my nose returns to normal.

'That was hell.' Amanda pants as she inserts the keycard into the door.  
'Tell me about it.' I pant back. 'Bastards almost rearranged my face. You nearly got it worse.'  
'I'm gonna disagree, as they barely broke my skin.' Amanda mentions as I sit down. 'You tired?'  
'Not at all.' I reply with a smile. 'Just a little dizzy. Will only be a few seconds.'

And with that, I stand back up.


	4. Chapter 4

'Can see that.' Amanda mentions as she takes hold of my hand.

I nod, and we walk through the door. There is an elevator right ahead, but as luck has it, the fucking thing is offline. Fortunately, there is a control room nearby, and after jumping through the window like an idiot, I make my way over to the terminal, the reboot the system.

'Elevator's back up.' Amanda announces happily.

I grab whatever I can find, and jump back through the window. We make our way into the elevator, and I press the button.

'Do you know what we're gonna find when we get there?' Amanda asks me out of curiosity.  
'This elevator leads to the android programming hub.' I reply with a sigh. 'It's not as secure as the repair area, but it will still have security cameras, and we will still run a fair risk of being killed. How's your neck doing?'  
'Sore.' Amanda admits as the elevator door opens. 'Looks like we're already here.'

Not quite, as we're above the requisitions area. I walk out of the elevator, and immediately over to the door. It immediately opens, and I see that we are in trouble.

'Great!' Amanda whisper-sighs as she catches up.  
'What's that, Rip?' Ricardo asks, curious.  
'Just shit on the station fucking up as usual.' Amanda replies as I notice a side panel.

I walk over to said side-panel, and jump onto it. The jets are pretty wild, and I can see that someone - or rather somethings - caused quite a fair bit of chaos since our last visit due to a lot of wires being visible.

And there's a hazmat joe underneath us.

I pull Amanda onto the panel, and we start making our way across, only stopping when the jets decide to jump into action. As soon as they stop, we resume the task at hand, eventually making it over to a horizontal beam which looks like it is about to break off. We manage to make it across, and we are able to jump over to the ladder right as the beam indeed breaks off, alerting the hazmat joe.

'I believe there's something amiss here!' The joe says, having noticed the beam.

Before I can say anything, the hazmat joe looks up, and spots us.

'You shouldn't be here!' The joe says as it starts walking.

I shoot a look at Amanda, and we both run into the hub. There is a vent ahead, but it's completely caved in, so we have no choice but to just head into the hub. I pull the lever, and Amanda walks in first, shotgun in hand. I pull out my shotgun and boltgun, and upon locating a floor vent, I motion for Amanda to climb in. She does so without hesitation, and we both make our way over to the area where Samuels is going to meet his end, using only my motion tracker for guidance.

Upon climbing into the final room, Amanda whips out her hack tool, and starts to hack the door. I cover for her, and upon her opening the door, we both make our way in.

'Ripley! Carter! Glad to see that you're both alive!' Samuels says to us, catching us by surprise.  
'You too, mate.' I reply back.  
'I've had to divert power in this area. It's the only way to ensure that I can access Apollo effectively.' Samuels announces as I start to grow worried.

Amanda notices my look, and we both run through a large corridor, into a large area with five generators. I warn Samuels that it is dangerous, to which he agrees, before closing the doors behind him, and entering the large MRI machine.

And as one can guess, Apollo doesn't take well to it. Like Ricardo warned us earlier, Seegson doesn't like the fact that a Weyland-Yutani android is amongst them, and we are about to witness that in action.

'Amanda! Paul! Apollo's rejecting me... oh no, you need to manually disconnect the systems... PLEASE!' Samuels pleads whilst in the machine.

I sigh, and make my way over to the generator with the red cable. Apollo seems to be enjoying the torture, and is amping up the difficulty quite a fair bit. Upon being given the order, I power down the generator.

'Now look for the blue cable.' Samuels says as his circuits are being fried.

Amanda looks down at the floor, and upon locating the blue cable, she traces it, before powering down the generator.

And then the lights go down.

'SHIT!' I curse out loud.  
'What's happening out there?' Samuels asks in a worried tone.  
'The goddamned emergency lights have come on.' I reply as I try to make out the cables. 'You're gonna have to guide us to the next generator.'  
'Look for a wall panel. There should be an upturned gurney nearby.' Samuels says as the timer lets us know how little time we have left.

I nod, and head over to said generator, powering it down.

'Next one will have a deactivated android next to it.' Samuels mentions as the room starts to go up in flames.

This is an absolute nightmare, but Amanda is able to locate said generator, and she powers it down.

'One more to go.' Samuels announces as the machine starts to short.

I nod, and power down the final generator. Unfortunately, in doing so, I send a message pulse of electricity through the room, effectively terminating Samuels. The glass is blown out, and Amanda and I jump through right as Samuels forces himself onto the floor.

'Samuels... you're dying.' Amanda replies as she tries to keep herself calm.  
'You talk like I've had an actual life. I thank you for that.' Samuels replies as his circuits start to go offline.  
'You did that for her?' I ask, a little emotional myself.  
'I opened up Apollo so that Amanda Ripley could have closure.' Samuels replies as more circuits start to go offline. 'Keep her safe, Paul Carter.'  
'I will, mate.' I reply as Samuels shuts down.

Amanda shoots a sad look at me, and I rip out the chip that has been keeping Samuels alive. He is now officially dead, and Amanda and I make our way back through to the other room.

'Ricardo! If you can hear us, please pick up.' I say as I regain my composure.  
'I'm here, guys. What's the latest news?' Ricardo asks, not knowing what's just happening.  
'Samuels has gone.' Amanda replies as we start walking.  
'Shit!' Ricardo whisper-curses.  
'He was able to access Apollo.' I chip in with a sigh. 'We're gonna make our way down to the core, see if we can get the fucker to talk.'

And with that, we make our way back into the programming hub. It's the same sketch as last time, but only the other way around. Unfortunately, our friends have woken up, so we have to make sure they don't see us. Unfortunately, despite the fact that we are in the vents, they do, and I can hear one of them climb in behind us. We hear clinking behind us, and I pistolwhip the fucker as it grabs onto my leg. I then shoot a few rounds into its head, causing it to release its grip. I then whack it with the maintenance jack, and less than a minute later, it is dead. I then climb out of the floor vent, and I follow Amanda as she runs back down the corridor and into the area with the jets.

And lo and behold, there is news about Taylor.

Ricardo tells us about a conversation between Taylor and Marlow, and we listen to it as we make our way back over to the elevator. We feel like we have been double-crossed, and upon making it back into the room with the control room, we head over to the transit car area, and I press the call button.

'So not only has Samuels died, but Taylor has been speaking behind our backs.' Amanda sighs as we wait for the transit car.  
'I knew there was something not-quite-right about her when we were on the Torrens.' I reply as I look at my feet. 'It's kinda like she has a bit of a superiority complex just because she's never had to experience what life on the front line is like. Am also betting that she's only in it for the money, or if not that, then information so that she can claim a single specimen and send it back to Earth.'  
'You'll be killed if they find out that you know about that.' Amanda whisper-sighs as the transit car arrives.  
'It's not an if, but a when, and they'll come for you too.' I reply as we enter the transit car. 'Fortunately, that won't be for some time, as they're far too dumb to figure out that people already know their fucking plans, but when they do finally figure it out, there'll be bullets with our names on them.'

Amanda nods, and I press a few buttons, letting the transit car know that we are to be taken to the core. Knowing our luck, we'll end up having to descend into the reactor, and that's gonna be fun as fuck to deal with. A few minutes later, we arrive at said core, and that's when the fun starts.

'Oh fuck!' I curse as I notice the security scanners.

Amanda sees what I mean. Unfortunately, it's our only way out, so we make our way over. I have seen these things before, and without saying a word, I take out my stun baton, and place everything else on the conveyor belt. Amanda follows suit, and we walk through the scanners. The door then opens, and we enter a room with two schematics tables. There is a turbine shaft nearby, and in order to enter the corridor, we need a code. After talking to Ricardo, we locate the code, and I input said code into the door, opening the door.

'I have a feeling that we're not gonna be alone here.' I say to Amanda as she walks through the blue door.

Amanda nods, and I immediately follow. She walks into a viewing room, and sure enough, I am right, as there are four hazmat joes wandering around. She hacks into the terminal, which opens up the orange door. We both run back through the corridor with the turbine shaft, and run through said orange door, entering yet another viewing room with four more hazmat joes. There also appear to be bodies on the floor, which lead me to think that others have tried to do the same thing but to no avail. Amanda then hacks into the terminal, powering the turbine down. However, it will only be down for about twenty seconds, so we have to run fast if we are to enter and climb up the ladder that is in there.

And we are successful.

I pull Amanda up the ladder right as the turbine shaft kicks back into gear. We then run down the small hallway, and come up against a few areas that we'll both have to squeeze through, knowing that Ricardo won't save us if we get stuck. Fortunately, we are able to make it through, and we drop down into the server bank area.

Ready to defend ourselves against eight more hazmat joes.

But this time, we are completely and utterly defenseless. I grab hold of Amanda's left hand, and we make our way into the left corridor, jumping slightly when we see two of the fuckers walking away from us. We then creep into the control room, and thankfully, there are a few masks there waiting for us. We put them on due to not wanting to be killed by nerve gas etc, and we make our way into the left server bank. Using nothing but stealth and our wits, we manage to work our way around the server bank, creeping into the long corridor without being noticed. There is another control room to our left, but we don't want to risk it for any biscuits, as we don't know if they are inhabited by androids or not.

They are.

And no, I don't mean any of the eight joes that we know are already down here, as there are a few standard ones down here with us aswell. I throw some shrapnel to distract them, and Amanda and I make our way through to the main control room which houses the terminal that we need to use in order to bring both server banks online. I do the honors, and upon completing the puzzle, I activate both of them. It's the easiest part so far, but oh boy, it won't be for much longer, as sirens go off, alerting the joes to our presence.

'We need to activate the consoles in the right server bank and then use the vents to access the core.' I whisper as I shoot a look at Amanda.

Before we can say anything, the joes appear. I grab hold of Amanda's left hand again, and we bolt through the door, into the right server bank. We are being followed in the process, and upon entering said server bank, we locate the server bank unit that we need to use, and Amanda activates the consoles that will open up the vents. We then make our way through said vents, closing them behind us so that we won't be followed, and upon entering the core, we try to hack into it.

But with no luck.

However, the vents do have consoles in them, and I seem to remember from my time on Pandora that some of them increase the time limit on the core terminal. I activate them, and Amanda and I both make use of them, extending the time limit to about ten seconds which is all we'll need. I am on hacking duties this time, and upon hacking into the core, I activate the needed processes, and the core lifts up, revealing an entrance.

'You must not let it know that you know about the other xenomorphs that are still here.' I say to Amanda as she walks onto the bridge.


	5. Chapter 5

Amanda nods in agreement, and I follow her into the central unit. She sits down in the chair, and after putting in a few codes, she brings up the reactor scan report. She lets them "know" that there are no more xenomorphs on the station, to which the computer says that the scan has come back inconclusive.

'Like we already confirmed, there are more here.' I sigh as Amanda whacks the terminal.  
'We'll have to go down to the reactor.' Amanda replies out of frustration.  
'My least favorite place, but I agree, as we need to go down there and see if we can purge their nests.' I mention as the door opens.

I will admit that I am still shocked at the news, although I have no idea what both myself and Amanda are about to walk into. I fear that there might be at least a hundred or more xenomorphs, although when it comes to the reactor, they are usually the least of our worries, as there are eight hazmat joes working on the reactor at any given time, and if they go down, eight more will follow, with the cycle repeating until the reactor is nothing but a desolate area that will look like an android graveyard. There is an orb in the centre, and there are two cores powering it, known as the alpha core and the beta core. There is an elevator leading to them; they are on a separate floor for security reasons, and they are powered by touchscreen consoles that are extremely secure yet at the same time extremely vulnerable to malware attacks if put in the wrong hands. There is also an auxillary core which is almost never brought online, and in order to access it, one has to climb up a vent into a ceiling junction that is near the central control area.

And we'll need to use it.

The core again lifts up, revealing a ladder. Amanda climbs down first, followed by me. Seconds later, a voice chimes in, announcing that Weyland-Yutani have taken over Sevastopol. I bang the ladder, and Amanda lets Ricardo know that we have suddenly become small fry in the game that none of us want to be a part of.

'So they buy Sevastopol, and allow Marlow and his crew to bring those creatures onboard, because they knew that there were going to be a lot of people here.' I sigh as Amanda follows me down the second ladder. 'They then use that to their advantage, and then Waits sends out the message, making sure that it is illegible so that we have no choice but to dock, and we're about to head right into the lion's den.'  
'Lion's den would be an understatement.' Amanda sighs as we land on terra firma.  
'No, as just one xenomorph could be enough to down an entire station, but now there will be an entire station full of xenomorphs, and they'll all be looking for us.' I reply back.

And no, I don't just mean the sixteen that we'll be dealing with, as every single xenomorph on the station will be looking for either us or other human survivors. Amanda leads me over to an open elevator, and we make our way down to another level, where we enter a somewhat secure area. There is a tram up ahead, and upon powering up the nearby generator, I press the buttons on the other generator that is there, and the tram moves.

'We've got company.' Amanda warns me as she looks at my motion tracker.  
'I'm aware of that.' I reply as I watch the tram move. 'How many?'  
'Three, and judging by it, I think they might be androids.' Amanda confirms as we start walking.

There is an android workshop ahead. There are screens everywhere, aswell as a few bodies who have obviously had their necks snapped. I also see a few dead facehuggers, and from what I can tell, the joe that is in the area hasn't noticed us. It is a standard joe, and fortunately, there is a working vent nearby, so Amanda crawls in. I decide to make my way towards the joe, creeping behind it so that it doesn't detect that I am there. I then get into position, and upon sending the signal, Amanda crawls out of the vent. We then creep into the workshop over the road, and I quietly nab the torch upgrade which allows Amanda to cut the panel covering the vent that we need to use.

But it is fucked.

Fortunately, I have a plan. It involves reprogramming the joe, and upon creeping behind it, I am able to stun it, and I am able to reprogam it. It removes the panel right as Amanda manages to fix the torch, and once it is done, I mercy-kill it. I then lead Amanda through the vent, and we end up in yet another area which is full of generators aswell as a joe.

The generator part is pretty easy, and upon powering them all up, we activate another tram, which is pulled up using a pulley system, and we jump down into the floor junction which is pretty wide. We then crawl until we find the second android workshop, which houses a hazmat joe. It is here where Amanda and I temporarily part ways, as I distract the joe, allowing her to grab the boltgun and access the terminal. She then creeps up behind the joe, and we both ambush the fuck out of it, sending it to kingdom come.

'This next part is gonna be fun.' Amanda sighs as she holds her boltgun.  
'It will indeed.' I sigh back. 'You know, it's also gonna be pretty dangerous, as the reactor joes will be far more dangerous. They will also be a lot faster, and just ambushing them might not work, so we'll have to go for it if we're to get past them.'

Amanda nods, and we make our way over to the elevator. My feet are sore from all the walking, but that doesn't bother me in the slightest, as making sure Amanda and I both escape from Sevastopol in one piece is the most important thing. I push the buttons, and we start to make our descent into the reactor. Amanda still has a few proximity devices on her, and upon entering the reactor, we pick up our weapons that we haven't seen in a while, and we ascend into the corridor that will lead us to the reactor.

'Have you ever taken a tour of the reactor?' Amanda asks Ricardo as we stare down the corridor.  
'Never got the chance, Rip.' Ricardo replies, slightly nervous.  
'Carter and I have both done some. Mine seems like a lifetime ago.' Amanda admits as we start walking.  
'And by the way, we're heading right into the danger zone, so we might be about to go dark on comms for a bit.' I chip in as the door opens.

I walk out, followed by Amanda, and we both look down at the reactor. To say that it is huge is an understatement, as it is unlike anything we've ever seen. There is an open elevator next to us, and I motion for Amanda to get everything ready.

'Ready?' I ask Amanda as I get everything ready.  
'As ready as you are.' Amanda replies with a smile.

And with that, we descend into the pits of hell. The joes start making their way towards us, and we riddle their bodies with bullets. However, they do not go down, and we have no choice but to run as fast as we can, dodging them as they lunge towards us. Even jacking them does nothing, but fortunately, we are able to make it to the elevator in one piece.

'I think we grossly underestimated their power just then.' I pant as I collapse onto the floor.  
'You hurt?' Amanda inquires, worried.  
'I think I sprained my ankle.' I admit as a wave of pain starts to hit me.

Amanda crouches down, and takes a look at my ankle. It is indeed a sprain, and it's because of the hard ground. I get up immediately, limping into the elevator and over to a seat. Amanda helps me sit down, and upon descending into what we will now call the nest, she helps me back up, and we reclaim our flamethrowers.

'Oh fuck!' Amanda curses as she looks around.  
'Is everything alright down there, Rip?' Ricardo inquires, confused and worried.  
'Everyone that's missing... everyone... they're all down here... it's like a farm.' Amanda replies, trying to keep calm.  
'Just stay safe, guys.' Ricardo says as he "hangs up".

There are signs that we are not alone, and upon entering a corridor, I see Axel, Kuhlmann, and some of the other folks that Amanda and I have come across (when they were still part of the being alive club). I notice a ladder nearby that leads to a covered ceiling junction, and when Ricardo lets us know that we need to use said auxillary core, I start to climb up said ladder, and using my strength, I break away the resin, and with Amanda in tow, I enter what appears to be a small room with an elevator. That is what we need to use, and the sign says that it leads to "the basement".

And we indeed use it.

'Do you think we'll have company with us?' Amanda asks me as we ascend into the basement.  
'No clue, although our friends have been doing some decorating up here, and that dead body right there has got some stories to tell.' I reply as I walk over to said dead body.

Amanda follows behind me, and I crouch down, browsing through the skeleton's suit pockets. I find none, and that's when I have an idea form in my head. Using some nearby wire, I stitch the bones together, turning the skeleton into a puppet. It still has some DNA on it, and I - with Amanda giggling right behind me - sling it onto my back and walk down the corridor which is flooded with god-knows-what.

We finally make our way up to where the auxillary core is located. There is an upper elevator, but it is no-longer in use, and the console up ahead is fucked. The room behind is where we need to go, and there is a generator there, but that is not what we need, as there is a vent to the left, and the vent leads to an isolated unit where the auxillary core is. Now, for those who want to know, the auxillary core is actually a computer that does the work of the reactor when the reactor goes offline, and there are files on it that are aimed at the alpha and beta cores. However, they need DNA activation, so I use the skeleton's hand.


	6. Chapter 6

'There might be a few joes in this part, so we need to be careful.' I mention as we climb into the vent.  
'What kind?' Amanda inquires, curious.  
'Standard will be my best guess.' I reply as I continue crawling. 'Also, sorry if I look like an idiot.'

Amanda nods with a giggle. Seconds later, we enter the room that is needed, and I walk over to the auxillary core. There is indeed a joe there, and it seems to work, but for some reason, it also seems to be down.

'He was better off dead.' The joe pipes up, catching us by surprise.

Without saying a word, I take hold of the skeleton's hand, and seconds later, the auxillary core is activated. I then unload the skeleton, and position it so that it looks like it is in a romantic relationship with said joe. I then lead Amanda through the vents, and we make our way back down to the nest area.

'Now that the auxillary core has been activated, we'll have to keep on lookout.' I say to Amanda as we climb back down the ladder.  
'What will the cores do?' Amanda asks out of worry.  
'They will enable us to start the reactor purge.' I reply happily as a facehugger appears.

Amanda grabs hold of said facehugger, and throws it so hard and so far that it explodes upon impact. Almost immediately, we start to regret the decision, as our friends turn up. We whip out our flamethrowers, and the moment they appear, we manage to scare them off.

About ten minutes later, we activate the alpha core. There is still the beta core to go, and the process is the same; console, lever, lever. However, for the beta core, there is the added side-bonus of having to go down a dark corridor and into a small vent to power up a generator. The vents are also "in use", so we make sure to keep our flamethrowers out at all times, and each time we flame a facehugger, we immediately find places to hide, as facehugger + flamethrower + nest = xenomorph. We are able to slowly power through it, and upon powering up the generator for the beta core, we make our way back through to the console area, and I tend to that side of things whilst Amanda waits near the pillar that has to rise. Once it is risen, she pulls both levers, and we run like idiots back down the corridor, back through the vent, flaming facehuggers along the way, and then back over to the elevator with five xenomorphs following us.

But now we have another problem.

We have no ammo left in the guns department, and we are about to re-enter the reactor, where eight more hazmat joes have taken up residence. Unfortunately, this time, we can't just run to the other elevator, as we need to activate the consoles that are close to the reactor whilst dodging blows and punches, and then we'll need to activate the central console, which brings down eight more hazmat joes.

And seconds later, we are back in the reactor.

'Ricardo, we can destroy the nest!' Amanda says upon us leaving the elevator.  
'You've both put yourselves in a lot of danger today.' Ricardo protests from the control room.

I tell Ricardo about the cores and how we can initiate a reactor purge with the nest being right in harm's way. We then enter the actual reactor, and sure enough, the joes start walking towards us.

'We need to do alpha first.' I say to Amanda as we start running.

Amanda nods, and we run past the joes, dodging their blows in the process. We also jump over the crates, and whilst Amanda is busy activating the alpha side, I am busy using the crates to our advantage, pulling them away from their brackets and barricading us in so that Amanda can do what she needs to do. We then make our way over to the sub-consoles, and I do the same thing.

Unfortunately, we have underestimated the power of the joes.

They throw the crates away, leaving us vulnerable. I have to resort to plan b, which is using myself as bait as Amanda tends to the beta console and the other sub-consoles. We then make our way over to the central console, and upon activating that, the joes go down, only to be replaced by eight more who now have nothing in their way.

But we are able to dodge them too.

We make our way into the small corridor, and crawl into the vent. We then climb up the ladder, and we enter the reactor control room where we can initiate the purge. It looks like a war zone, but I am able to reboot the system, and under my guidance, Amanda initiates the reactor purge.

And unleashes sixteen xenomorphs.

'The purge has failed, Ricardo.' I sigh, feeling hopeless.  
'Just get back to the bureau, guys, please.' Ricardo quietly replies.

I nod, and Amanda and I both make our way to the transit station. We make our way back to the scimed tower, as it appears that the purge has brought external comms back online.

'You will find a shuttle in the shuttle bay, but you will need to find a way to open the door first, as the circuits seem to have shorted.' Ricardo mentions as I look around.

I'm already on it, as I remember that door having faulty wiring, and I also remember seeing a pair of lifts down there. I also remember that one of them heads down to the pediatric ward, and they have their own server bank which is where everything medical is kept. It is human-access only due to the fact that the joes... well... you know the score, and there is a control room there which we also need to use. It is still operational, although we now run the risk of having sixteen xenomorphs on our asses.

And that means that we're gonna run out of fuel.

But that doesn't happen until after Amanda saves my life, as we're gonna be back in comms by the time that happens. That's gonna be real fun, as we'll have sixteen xenomorphs on our back and absolutely NOTHING to fend them off with. Add some joes and humans into the mix, and you'll get all sorts of crazy moments. We'll also have to hide a fair bit, and any fuel we find will be rationed.

If we find any at all.

I cut open the panel that leads to a small freight area, and Amanda and I make our way over to the elevator which takes us down to the large waiting room from earlier.

'Waits really did a number on this place.' Amanda mentions as she shoots a look at me.  
'That sounds about right.' I reply as a xenomorph drops down in the distance. 'Flamethrowers at the ready, as we're not alone here.'

And with that, we make our way back into the hospital area. It looks like a graveyard, and the MRI room is now a shell of its former self. There are loads of dead bodies, and upon returning to the area with the large gaping hole, I see a hazmat joe. Fortunately, we are able to dodge it, but in doing so, we alert company, who are rewarded with flames to their faces as we make our way over to the elevator.

'You press the button.' I order as I shoot a fleeting look at Amanda.

Amanda nods, and with her free hand, she presses the button. I then back into the elevator, and we head down to the pediatric ward. Unfortunately, our pals follow us, and we have no choice but to hide and use the vents.

'There is a second MRI room down here.' I mention as Amanda follows my lead.  
'That's good to know.' Amanda replies with a sigh as she flames another xenomorph.

We head into the nearest ward, and make our way over to the vent in the corner. We have no choice but to use stealth here, and there is a high possibility that we will get ambushed on both ends whilst in said vent. We immediately crawl in, and using my flamethrower, I light up the way, whilst also warning the xenomorphs that I will fire should they turn up.

And they do.

Right as I'm about to leave the vent, a xenomorph turns up, and runs over. I flame it like there's no tomorrow, and it immediately backs off, alerting its friends. Amanda places some proximity devices, and we hide whilst I stealth-hack into the terminal, allowing us access to the MRI room where there is another vent. Once we are in said room, Amanda places some more proximity devices, and I am able to cut off the panel, giving us access to the vent. It is a hybrid vent, although that poses a few problems, as it means that there are multiple exit points, and that means that more than one xenomorph can jump in at any moment, so we keep our wits about us. I periodically use my motion tracker, and when the coast is clear, Amanda and I start crawling through the vent, only stopping when we find another access point. We jump up, climb out, and make our way over to the server bank, creeping so that we do not alert our comrades. My motion tracker is almost dead, and we can't use Amanda's, so we'll soon have to rely on our hearing.

And that's not an understatement.

Amanda volunteers to remain at the server bank, whilst I make my way into the control room. We keep comms open, and once everything is done, she makes her way through, and I close the door down, forcing us to rely on the vents. We are able to use them without much problem, until an explosion near the server bank causes our friends to turn up again. We jump out of the vent, and make our way back over to the elevator, where we ascend back into the main hospital zone. We then run over to the shuttle bay, and upon locking a level 3 data cell, we hack into the door, and take the shuttle over to the Anesidora.

'Have you ever flown one of these things before?' Amanda asks me as I take to the controls.  
'A few times.' I reply happily. 'It's not really that hard, and most of it is on autopilot, so we don't need to worry about anything other then docking. Can you check the surgery unit?'  
'It's fully operational.' Amanda confirms as she sits down.  
'Will need to be, as if Marlow sets the Anesidora to self-destruct, shrapnel will be flying all over the place, and if that happens, one of us could get hurt.' I mention as we pull out of Sevastopol's orbit.

And that will be the case for me, as my arm is going to be ripped off.

Upon docking, we start to make our way over to where Marlow and Taylor appear to be.

'Looks like somebody forgot to perform maintenance on this place.' I sigh as we enter a small room.

Before Amanda can reply, the smell of chemicals starts to emanate through the ship. I start to feel dizzy, but I still have a job to do, and that job is making sure that Amanda is safe. We put on our masks, and upon punching in yet another code, we grab what lootables we can find, and we walk through another door, which leads to a generator room where there are two generators and a console unit that extends out. We both work in unison, and seconds later, the console unit appears. I press all the needed buttons, bringing the power back online.

And cue an introduction from Marlow.

He sounds like a stuck-up son-of-a-bitch, as even though he wants to send Sevastopol to kingdom come with the xenomorphs still onboard, that will mean that the remaining survivors are killed aswell, not all of them being evil fucks. We run into the reactor room (yes, ships have reactors too), and Amanda is finally given the chance to listen to the recording that Ellen made.

'It all makes sense now.' Amanda sighs as she shoots a look at me. 'She wanted to save me.'  
'She did, but in doing so, she had to sacrifice the possibility of ever seeing you again.' I reply as Marlow starts to stir.

Amanda looks at Marlow, who follows up with a dialogue about how Weyland-Yutani are corrupt motherfuckers who shouldn't be given the co-ordinates regarding the xenomorph homeworld. For once, I agree with him, but after jacking a facehugger dead in the small medical unit, I am without a bit of skin on my hand. Then Marlow goes down, and that's when it is revealed that he has turned the reactor into a nuke.

Cue messing with generators.

A power up here, a hack there, another power up there, and we are temporarily able to disable the reactor. However, it is only for a few seconds, as it whirrs back up, killing Taylor in the process.

And now the fun begins.

The auto-destruct sequence is initiated, and immediately kicks in. Amanda and I both run, and as I predicted, we are both blown about by the explosions. I hold onto my bag for dear life, and when the ship violently tilts sideways, we violently skid a fair distance.

And this is where my arm gets amputated.

Whilst skidding, a piece of shrapnel comes down, amputating my arm at the shoulder. I feel every single second of it, and when gravity finally kicks in again, Amanda grabs hold of said arm with one hand, me with the other, and we make our way back to the shuttle. I am already starting to drift in and out of consciousness, and once we are back inside the shuttle, Amanda activates the automated surgery unit, lays me down, puts in the needed code, and takes to the controls as the arms reattach my arm. I can feel absolutely everything; there was no time to knock me out, and once my arm is back where it belongs, the wound is lasered up, and my blood cells are replicated.

'A few seconds more, and you'd have been dead.' Amanda says as we pull back into Sevastopol's orbit.  
'I was actually saving you, as it was gonna be either my arm or your head.' I moan as I flex my muscles. 'Good to see I've got movement. Hey, we're not heading back to medical, and I think that the blast took out some of the docking bays. You might have to dock near comms instead.'

Without hesitation, Amanda changes the co-ordinates, forcing us to dock near comms.

'We're docked.' Amanda announces as the shuttle door opens.

I force myself up, and we head out into what appears to be yet another freight area. Ricardo comes over intercom, letting us know that the shuttle is screwed. Also, thanks to Apollo having a short reboot time, external comms have gone out again, although we already know about that due to Ricardo letting us know about it after the hoohaa involving the hazmat joes in the reactor. My arm is sore due to being newly reattached, and I know that something is gonna go down here.

'The broadcast from Verlaine just updated.' Ricardo then announces, catching us by surprise.

We listen in, and sure enough, it is Verlaine, letting us know that she has seen what has just happened and that she can take survivors. I am thankful, although the joy doesn't last long, when we enter yet another familiar area.

'There were androids last time we were here.' Amanda mentions as our motion trackers beep.  
'There were indeed.' I reply as a human comes into shot.

The human stands there, threatening to shoot us. Fortunately, I have some ideas popping into my head, and using the environment, I am able to take down the guy quietly.

Right as Ricardo lets us know that there are security guards around.

'Ready for some fun?' I ask Amanda as we enter one of the large rooms.

Amanda nods, and I throw some shrapnel. Immediately, the xenomorphs enter from stage left, and we hide underneath a table as they get to work, chasing and killing whoever they can find.

'And that's how you get the xenomorphs to do your bidding for you.' I sigh with a giggle.  
'But they'll now be looking for us.' Amanda protests as we hear footsteps.  
'Indeed they will, but we can use that to our advantage. Not just that, but there is a hidden compartment in one of the rooms, and I think there might be a joe there, so maybe we can risk it for a biscuit and bring the fucker out.' I mention as the xenomorph walks into view.

I count to three, and Amanda and I crawl out from under the table. We are immediately spotted, and we use that to our advantage as we run down the corridor and up the stairs. Ricardo closes the door behind us, and we place some unused proximity devices on the floor due to the fact that they were never really needed in the pediatric area. The xenomorphs immediately pop up, and we watch from behind a crate as they are all hit in the face with shrapnel.

'Marlow's co-ordinates are still on this terminal.' Ricardo mentions as we walk up the stairs to greet him.  
'How are you doing behind there?' I ask, worried.  
'Not too good, as people have been banging on the door, and I had to shut off the door behind me when the aliens turned up. I also think there might be something else here, but I'm not too sure.' Ricardo admits as he opens the door.

Amanda and I both walk through the door, not knowing that it will be our last time seeing Ricardo alive. Our new mission is to manually reallign the dishes that are outside, and of course that's going to mean having to go outside aswell.

And that is always fun.

It is also incredibly dangerous, as if anything goes wrong, we're gonna pay with our lives. I already know the co-ordinates for the Torrens (35 and 75), although we have to put them in manually. My Marine training covers such stuff, and it's gonna come in handy when we are having to use stealth to get around. I have also mapped out a usable route that we can take should there be any more fun to deal with, including a civilian area which heads into a computer suite area, although that will only be of use should there be any fucked elevators.


	7. Chapter 7

And that will happen.

Upon re-entering comms, we start to make our way over to the left-hand-side corridor. There are a few humans with us, so we have to use the vents so that we can evade them. However, we are still vulnerable to attacks in the xenomorph department, and that is put into play when a few jump down into the room, killing the humans who I'm sure are just trying to figure out a way to survive. We manage to get out without being seen, and Amanda places a proximity device just seconds before one looks our way.

Fortunately, we are gone by that point.

I cut the panel, and we enter a closed-off control room with a ladder. I climb up said ladder, and once Amanda and I are both in the same room, we make our way over to the computers, and I activate the scanners. We then activate both of them, alligning the dishes.

'We're going outside, Ricardo.' I announce as Amanda and I both climb down the ladder.  
'You will need to activate the console.' Ricardo mentions as something is going on in the background.

I nod, and lead Amanda into the airlock. We then descend into the lower airlock, and we put on our eva suits. Seconds later, we head outside, and we make our way over to an open elevator which takes us to the upper level. There are no xenomorphs around, and upon reaching the console, we see that it is turned off. I then notice the dish maintenance unit, and upon descending, I lead Amanda into the room, and she pulls the lever. After that comes the generators, and we pull another lever which brings the dishes online.

Fast forward twenty seconds.

We make our way back up to the console, and Amanda punches in the co-ordinates. The dishes automatically reallign, and seconds later, a voice comes through.

'Ripley! Carter! Is that you?' Verlaine asks us, surprised and worries.  
'Yes, Verlaine.' I reply as I track the signal. 'Shit's going down here, and we need urgent extraction.'  
'Why?' Verlaine inquires, audibly confused.  
'There are creatures here on the station.' Amanda confirms as she starts walking. 'They are lethal. We need immediately extraction, please Verlaine.'

After that, Verlaine lets us know the obvious (dock not being adequate). We then make our way back down to the lower level, and Amanda follows me as I creep over to the airlock. Upon reaching a certain point, it becomes clear that we are going to be in deep shit, as all sixteen xenomorphs appear, and they break into comms. We make our way into the airlock, and upon removing our eva suits, we get into the elevator, and make our way back up to the upper airlock.

'Get ready to leave, Ricardo.' Amanda says, not knowing that shit is about to go down.  
'Best news I've heard all day, Rip, w-.' Ricardo replies as the line goes down.

Amanda tries to get through to Ricardo, but to no avail.

'He's dead.' I sigh as I creep over to the window.  
'You sure about that?' Amanda asks, speechless.

I am unable to reply, as I immediately realize what has just happened. Amanda creeps over to me, and we both watch as the xenomorphs enter comms. They are pissed, and I sigh, knowing that we are about to lose all of our ammo right here in this one room. However, we have to bite the bullet, as it's now or never, and the moment the door opens, we run out, and we flame all the xenomorphs, giving them absolute hell as the fuel count goes down from five hundred to two hundred and then zero within minutes. We then use up all of our pipe bombs etc, and we medikit ourselves up to the nines, knowing that this might be the last chance we ever have full health.

'Well that's us fucked.' Amanda sighs as the elevator door closes.  
'Royally, but we still have a chance, as we'll have to use our wits now, and if they spot us, we'll have to break their line of sight.' I reply as I sit down. 'We'll also have to hide a lot, and I might have to use my maintenance jack if we're to get more ammo.'

The elevator door then opens, and we make our way out. We walk over to the control room where Ricardo is, and my heart immediately sinks.

'You don't want to see this, Amanda.' I sigh as I keep Amanda behind me.

Amanda doesn't obey, and immediately looks at Ricardo. Our sorrow is short-lived, when a few xenomorphs turn up. We hide, and when the coast is clear, we head over to the stairwell, and make our way down.

And we descend into the pits of hell.

Flames are everywhere, and more security guards have turned up. We have about three hiding spots that will keep us safe, but we have to move forward, so we forgo them, instead heading into the rooms whilst trying not to be seen, and hiding under the tables when they notice us. Of course, they try and shoot at us, but that just brings some unwanted attention. Our hazmat friend is still walking around, and when he takes a few humans down, we cannot help but laugh.

But then he sees us.

We crawl out from under said table, and make a run for it. This also causes our xenomorph friends to pop up, but we are able to break their line of sight, hiding in spots where they won't bother to crouch down and look for us. When the coast is clear, we make our move, and instead of turning left towards the large elevator, we head back into the other area, and turn right, where there is a small elevator that will take us down to yet another private transit station.

Which I hate more than the public ones.

Upon our arrival, we are immediately confronted by a pair of security guards. There is a closed-off control room, and there are a few crates there that we can hide behind. My arm is now completely healed, although my back is going for it, and I'm starting to feel tired.

'Somebody's in here with us!' Guard number one announces out loud.  
'What makes you say that, jackass?' Guard number two asks as he becomes annoyed.  
'I just saw people come in.' Guard number one replies as he looks at us.

Guard number one shoots, causing us to hide. Guard number two runs off like a little girl, and seconds later, our friends turn up, killing both guards and walking around like they own the fucking place. I lead Amanda over to another hiding spot, and it soon becomes clear that we might have to do the unthinkable.

'Is that a pipe bomb over there?' Amanda whisper-asks upon noticing a potential weapon.

I nod, and upon seeing that the coast is clear, I creep over, and pick up the pipe bomb. There is some fuel there aswell, and I pocket both. I then creep back over to where Amanda is hiding, and I fill her flamethrower up halfway, before using the other half on mine. There is about a hundred fuel in both of our tanks, which should be enough to see us through this bit.

After a few minutes, the chaos dies down, and we start to make our way over to the farthest door. It is one of those types, and upon cutting off the panel, I open it, and we make our way over to the terminal which is inside. I browse through the files, and upon locating one with a passcode, I take a mental note.

'So what do we do now?' Amanda asks me as we head back out.

I don't reply. Instead, I walk over to the second door, and punch in the code. It leads to another control room, and upon pressing a few buttons, I bring the power back online. However, it is largely faulty, and it takes a few more tries, before it finally kicks in. This opens up the main control room, and the moment we enter, a bunch of facehuggers appear, and we flame them all.

'Hide!' I order as I start to hear footsteps.

Amanda nods, and we both hide under the desk. We put various items in front of us, so that we are obscured from view, and we hold our hands to our mouths, so that the xenomorphs do not hear us breathing. We are successful, and the moment they back the fuck off, we crawl out, power the transit back up, make our way over to the transit car, and press the call button. However, our respite is short-lived, when they decide to drop down again. We have to resort to hiding behind crates, but that is a problem when they're coming from both sides, so the moment the transit car arrives, we both say "fuck it", and we run in, panting as the door closes behind us. I then punch in the co-ordinates, and minutes later, we arrive at yet another private transit station.

Cue more from Verlaine.

Yeah, Amanda managed to sweet-talk her into it, but then again, she has a justified reason, just like I did when I wanted to find out what Waits was doing. We make our way over to the elevator, but as luck would have it, the circuits are completely fried, rendering it useless. Fortunately, the gate ahead seems to have a few faults, so I move the crate out of the way, put the pipe bomb down as a proximity device, and whack the gate with my maintenance jack. The door to the control room is open, and the moment Amanda and I both hide, the xenomorphs drop down, and run straight into the pipe bomb, causing the gate to completely break away. They immediately fuck off, and we make our move, into what is obviously a recreational area.

'Fancy a game of pacman?' I ask Amanda as we enter the area.

Amanda sighs, and makes her way over to a dead body. There is a corridor up ahead, aswell as a few couches that have blood on them from what I can tell is an android attack due to how the blood looks. There are also a few cabinets, and from what I can see, there are some boxes, which leads me to think that the dead body has been holed up in that area.

And it's a big area.

And there are no vent junctions, but now that the gate is open, we are incredibly vulnerable to xenomorph attacks. We head down the corridor, browsing through the siderooms in the hopes of securing any fuel (spoiler: we don't), and the moment we come across a door, my motion tracker beeps. I pull the lever, and we spill out into a larger area with what appears to be bunks. It appears to be unused save for a few boxes, and from what we can see, it's relatively safe, until I notice a ceiling junction.

'I think our friend in there must've had to run.' I mention as Amanda looks up.  
'It doesn't look like it's been used.' Amanda replies with a sigh.  
'It likely wasn't, but he didn't want to take chances, so he locked himself in that other bit.' I add as I hear footsteps. 'And there's a double door ahead. I think we should go through it, lest we risk losing more than just our ribcages.'

Amanda nods, and we walk through the door. The place is very obviously a cafeteria of some sort, although it seems to be on fire, and to make matters worse, we have a hazmat joe walking towards us. We start running, and without taking any hits whatsoever, we manage to dodge both it and the computer terminals that are all over the place. There are also shards of glass on the floor from the screens going bye-bye, and to the left is the cafeteria entrance which is blocked off.

'Pipe bomb time.' I say as I whip out said pipe bomb.

I throw the pipe bomb, and immediately, the barricade is blown to kingdom come. Part of the wall is too, and we make our way in, hiding behind cabinets so as not to catch sight of the xenomorphs. I look around; we have a terminal, a well-lit area, and a large mechanical penis that requires a keycard which is locked behind a unit that needs a passcode. I jump for sarcastic joy, and the moment the xenomorphs turn away, I seize my chance, motioning for Amanda to follow behind me and hide whenever need be. I pull the terminal over to a safe spot, and upon locating the passcode, I creep over to said unit, punch in the numbers (one-nine-eight-four), and creep over to the penis, putting in said keyboard which activates a forklift that looks like it's about to break. Amanda and I then make our way through, and we find... another panel.

'I'll do this one.' Amanda suggests as she looks at the panel.

I nod, and hand Amanda the torch. She cuts off the panel, and she then pulls the lever, opening the door which leads to a very long and very narrow corridor which is attached to a handful of computer suites. I know there's gonna be trouble here, as we have nowhere to hide, and sixteen xenomorphs in this bit will mean certain death if I'm not extra-careful.

'I have a bad feeling about this.' I moan as I look around.  
'Hope there's some fuel here.' Amanda admits as she starts walking.

Fortunately, there will be, as we will need to have something to cover our asses. We creep all the way down the corridor, looking in the drawers for lootables that we are able to put into my bag (enough to make a single medikit plus a few flares). We then reach the end of the corridor, and this is where shit really starts to hit the fan. The door is locked, meaning that we have to use the vent, and upon entering an open side-room, I am immediately confronted by a facehugger, which I am able to jack. Amanda picks up a keycard, and she inserts it into mechanical penis as I sort out the fuel (again, a hundred each). The door is now open, and upon walking through it, we head back into the corridor, and head into a computer suite with a room that's got a lever in it.

And I pull it.

The power immediately cuts out, and thanks to an alert in the first computer suite, we are in a fair bit of trouble, so we have to move without being seen.

Quietly.

We make it without being seen, although as soon as we re-enter the room, company immediately joins us. We are forced to hide, and as soon as they all leave, Amanda creeps over to the generator, and powers it up.

'We need to get out of here... NOW!' I whisper-yell as I start running.

Amanda nods, and we run out of the room, and down the corridor. When our friends decide to join in, we flame them, all whilst (unsuccessfully) trying to conserve fuel. The second computer suite has a room that is now open, and upon running into it, we make our way into said room, which (luckily) has a vent.

No fuel, check.

Sixteen xenomorphs, check.

Vent, check.

WE'RE FUCKED!

Or so we think, as the vent caves in behind us, rendering that particular access point useless. We are able to make it out, but again, there is a fucked elevator to deal with, so we decide that it is best to enter the auxillary server farm which is (conveniently) connected to the laboratory above the pediatric ward. We make our way in, looking over our shoulders every couple of seconds due to the possibility that the xenomorphs are still on our asses.

They are.

We start running, throwing things out of the way as we head up the stairwell and through the remains of at least twenty servers that we have to jump over. There are a few dead bodies too, and upon making it out of the auxillary server farm, we run into Bacchus Apartments. We almost injure ourselves in the process, but that doesn't bother us, as our priority at that moment is just getting out of Bacchus alive.

'There's a door up ahead.' I mention as I pull Amanda into hiding. 'We need to use it, as this is a mostly closed area.'  
'Got it.' Amanda confirms with a sigh.

Immediately, the xenomorph spots us. Using all of my strength, I grab hold of its tail right as it is about to pierce Amanda, and I force it away. It hates that, and it calls for backup, but fortunately, we are much smarter, and we are able to break its line of sight, giving me time to force said needed door open, giving us the chance to run down into Lorenz and through to the laboratory, where we are able to bring the systems back online. We then make our way to the elevator, and we arrive back at where we started.

'Now that that's done, we need to head back to comms.' Amanda mentions, not knowing that comms is fucked.

However, there is another comms array, which can be accessed through the departure lounge. We make our way back there, and to our (non) surprise, it's falling apart, with the fact that Sevastopol is falling out of orbit making it much better (sarcasm, as it's making it worse). The array is right ahead, and upon cutting open the panel, Amanda and I both enter the elevator, and make our way there.

'We have been through a lot since coming here.' I say as I sit down.  
'We have indeed.' Amanda admits whilst following suit.  
'And I regret none of it.' I add with a smile.  
'Me neither, and by the way, I still want that whiskey and coke.' Amanda confirms as she grabs hold of my hand.  
'We'll have to see how Yokohama pans out first.' I sigh with a smile.

Amanda nods with a smile, and upon arriving at said comms array, she helps me up, and we make our way into the large room. There are a few units that need to be powered up, with one of them being attached to wires that feed into what I'm (correctly) guessing is an underground junction. We both enter said vent, and upon locating said junction, Amanda drops down into it, and she pulls the lever. I then pull her out, careful so as not to alert our friends who have turned up, and we crawl over to the vent hatch. I open it, and upon seeing that the coast is clear, I jump out, followed by Amanda, and we hide under a table.

Fast forward a few seconds.

I am able to hack into the terminal, and I turn on the power on that side. The process is repeated (sans underground junction) on the other side, and then we head over to the central console.

'Oh no you fucking don't.' I sneer as I jack the joe to death.

And then Amanda and I hide, as it attracts company. To make matters worse, some of them jump into the vent, forcing us to get the fuck outta there. We are successful, and upon doing what needs to be done on the terminal, we make our way up the stairwell that's nearby, as we need to access the upper control room. Fortunately, there is fuel there (fifty each), and we sort that out before heading into the upper control room. I access the needed files, and immediately engage the umbilical docking clamps.

But there is about to be a problem.

We proceed to make our way back down to the comms array, but we are stopped by one of the xenomorphs. We stand still, watching as it walks down the stairs. We then follow it, and using our wits, we creep around, climbing into the vent without being seen (well, almost), and then climbing out the other side, where we see a corridor that leads to another airlock.

And we need to use it.

We wait until the coast is clear, and then we make our move. We enter the airlock, and Amanda walks over to the left-hand side. Immediately, she is grabbed by a xenomorph, and I - being the knight in shining armour that I am - pull in a crate, jump onto it, and climb into the ceiling junction, following her skid marks. This is the first time we have been separated since arriving here, and upon jumping down into what is now obviously a nest, I run over to Amanda, and break the resin away, releasing her from what would have otherwise become her tomb.

'Thanks for that.' Amanda pants as she looks at me.  
'I'm sure you'd do that for me if I had gotten pulled up.' I mention as reality starts to sink in.  
'Like hell I would.' Amanda wheezes as she takes her first step. 'God, that fucking hurt.'

As will being surrounded by hundreds of facehuggers, as we are now in facehuggertown. There are no lootables, so we are completely screwed save for our maintenance jacks, but that's okay, as jacks are all that we need when dealing with facehuggers.

Oh, and transit cars too.

Amanda and I make our way through facehuggertown, annihilating every single facehugger that tries to face-rape us. We give them no mercy whatsoever, and when some of the xenomorphs pop in for a chat, we remain expertly hidden, trying not to giggle as they run off without even noticing us.

And then the transit car part comes in.

The ex-vent is just a precursor, and upon entering what is obviously the transit car version of a subway line, we are almost cut in half by one, although I manage to pull both myself and Amanda back in time. When the coast is finally clear, we make our way over the track, and locate a track with a trench that has a ladder. We climb into it, right as another transit car approaches, both of us in shock due to how close it is to our fucking heads. When the second coast is finally clear, we make our way over to... yet another track with a trench. This one, though, is a little deeper, and we jump into it.

And Amanda climbs up the ladder.

Seconds later, the transit car appears, almost crushing Amanda's fingers and sending her flying to the ground. There's no blood (fortunately), but she is in pain, and I help her up onto the side where there is what appears to be a control room.

'I don't think we've got much longer to go.' I pant with a sigh.

Amanda nods, and we make our way over to the vent. We have our maintenance jacks in hand, ready to annihilate more facehuggers, and sure enough, upon climbing into the vent, that's the case. We then make it out onto the top of an elevator, which is connected to a ladder which we both use to climb down. The elevator then falls, but it stops a few inches above us, and we are able to make it out in one piece.

And into a now-in-flames comms array.

'Oh god shit fuck!' I curse as I hold Amanda's hand.

Amanda nods in agreement, and we make our way back out into the comms array. Our pals are there, and the smoke is causing everything to go blurry. Again, we have to use stealth, so we crawl into the vent, making sure we stay away from flames etc which are also in the vent. We then crawl out on the side with the airlock, and upon seeing that the coast is somewhat clear, we run up the stairs and into said airlock, put eva suits on, and head back outside.

'Hopefully, this is it.' I sigh as the airlock opens.  
'Me too.' Amanda replies happily.  
'Only thing I do regret is those bastards.' I admit as I start to giggle.  
'Which ones?' Amanda inquires, curious.

I shoot a look at Amanda, and it is then that she realizes that I am on about the joes. She lets out a nod in agreement, and we head over to yet another stairwell. We are now joined by various different planets and planetoids, and upon climbing said stairs, we reach what appears to be a black box.

But it is no ordinary black box.

It contains a few cyllinders that will initiate Sevastopol's own self-destruct sequence. Our friends have decided to join us, and I tend to the two keycard consoles, which are needed in order for said box to open. Said box then opens, and upon me giving the signal, Amanda tends to the cyllinders in the correct fashion. Once they are all done, we both tether ourselves to the side rail, taking hold of each other's hands as we are jettisoned into space.

And then we re-enter the Torrens.

We are still in our eva suits, and Amanda tries to contact Verlaine but to no avail.

'I think she might be dead.' I sigh as I start walking.  
'You sure?' Amanda inquires out of worry as she follows suit.  
'Positive.' I admit as we walk down the corridor.

The atmosphere has changed, as we look into the medical area, only to see nobody there. It is no-longer welcoming, and upon entering the central area (containing the airlock which is now open), we see that the door leading to where moody-bitch-mcgee ranted is now locked. I shoot a sad look at Amanda, and she pulls the lever.

And we are confronted by a single xenomorph.

It's one of the xenomorphs from the lab, and it's now much older and far more pissed off. Amanda and I both stumble backwards, trying not to get killed by the fucker, and we slowly but surely enter the airlock. The xenomorph follows suit, and once we are in position, Amanda presses a large green button.

And we are ejected into space.

Unconscious.

Holding each other's hand.

And then a rescue crew turns up.

We won!

Or so we think.

As our story is only just beginning.

We are Paul Carter and Amanda Ripley.

Signing off!


End file.
